...yeah...this happened
.
.
.
She feels his teeth skim across the column of her throat, and a shiver courses through her body.
This is the last time, she promises herself, even though they both knew that this was only the beginning.
.
.
.
"Last time," she whispers, like a prayer, over and over again. He lets out a low chuckle.
"You said that last time," he reminds her teasingly, his breath is warm on her cheek and she wants him closer, she always wants him closer.
Her mind is filled with white noise and she draws a blank. Did she really want this to be the last time? Or was she delaying the inevitable? The fact that one day, she'd lose him, and she'd have nothing, no scent on the pillow, no shirt on her living room floor, she'd be left with no reminders that he was apart of her life, washed away like footprints in the sand.
"...That doesn't sound like me," she says, and he tickles her waist in response, slowly, and the ache in her gut is so painful she almost cries out.
His hands slide up the expanse of her thigh and she forgets what she is thinking about. What day is it again?
He could do that to her, make her forget about everything else and indulge herself in the scent of ash and pine.
.
.
.
Her eyes are shut, but she can sense that he's awake now. It's early morning - probably somewhere close to 3 am, but she can hear him breathing more gently than usual, like he's trying his best not to wake her.
Carefully, she hears him stir his hand up, she felt it lift across the sheets and stop right above her cheek. Then, his hand retreats to where it had been before, it's not like him to be cowardly, but their relationship is anything but the norm.
She tries to forget that night, but it's branded into her memory like hot steel. She recalls it every day, washing it like the sea over a pebble until it's smooth as marble.
Sometimes she wishes it hadn't happened, like she hadn't seen that glimmer, that flicker of civilized affection, and then, maybe she wouldn't be hung out to dry like she was now.
Her hair billows with the wind and she can see her breath as it spirals out of her lips like smoke.
That was the last time, wasn't it?
.
.
.
"I'm not ready for a relationship," he told her one spring evening. She faked a smile and agreed.
That's why she is here. That's why she is lying in bed with shrapnel in her heart, and wishing that she was anywhere else but there.
He isn't looking for a relationship, and she isn't looking to have her heart broken.
Looks like she would be the one to lose this battle.
.
.
.
"I just -" Diane flaps her hands in front of her face and sighs. "-I don't get you guys. Are you a thing, or not?"
It hurts, because she doesn't have an answer. She absently twirls the stirrer in her coffee until the sugary patterns across the top fade to nothingness. Diane prods her persistently, but Elizabeth has always been good at dodging the question, maybe she picked it up from him.
"I'm worried about you," Diane tells her, after they've paid and are on their way to work from their little get-together. "You haven't been the same since."
Since. Since when, a year, a month? Elizabeth smiles like no time has passed.
"I'm fine." she lies, even though it hurts like hell.
.
.
.
"You wanna get out of here?" The man's question rings empty in her ears, like wind in a bottle.
"Sure." She responds, because she has no reason not to. The music is loud and her thoughts are quiet, dimmed silent by the alcohol and self-loathing she's induced herself to. Maybe this time, it won't hurt. Maybe she ought to detach herself from the world, be callous and thoughtless. Just like him.
She's wrong, it still hurts. it hurts because it's not him who's holding her shoulders, it's not him who tells her she looks beautiful, it's not him it's not him-
Her heart screams in protest when he kisses her, but her mind begs her to proceed, because holding onto him wouldn't do her any good, especially when he's already gone.
.
.
.
"Who was that?" Diane gawks, perplexed as a ruffled stranger exits her apartment in a hurry.
"My...boyfriend." She lies thinly through her teeth. Her hair is unbrushed and her eyes are bloodshot, but she carries on like everything is the same.
"Your boyfriend?" Diane inquires as she lets herself in. "I thought that you and Mel-"
"Don't," she almost screams, eyes tight and mouth screwed shut. "We're not...we never were-"
"I get it," Diane interrupts her, suddenly cold like the gales of a blizzard. her amethyst eyes zero in on Elizabeth, calculating and frozen, when she shoots, she will not miss, and there will be no survivors."You let him use you."
The accusation is so raw she does a double-take, and tiny, sharp needles prick her eyes with precision. She will not cry. She will not cry. She will not - she won't - not over him, anyone but him.
"I did." She agrees, and for once, maybe just a few tears wouldn't hurt.
.
.
.
"I don't want your fucking excuses!" Diane shrieks, her eyes are burning because she wants to see him aflame, she wants to see him doubled over in pain, what she wants is something only he can deliver.
"I know," he rasps, his fists take in handfuls of his hair and he pulls as tight as he can, "I know."
Diane holds her head up, she always hated being taller than all the boys, but at this moment in time, she wields it like a weapon.
"I want my fucking best friend back." She seethes, fire curling at her fingertips.
"I just wanted to protect her," he repeats, eyes shut tight, like if he'd close them long enough he'd open them again to see her smiling face.
"No, you didn't," Diane spits, "no you fucking didn't - you're selfish, you didn't care about her at all, you-"
"That's not true." he says, voice amplified and flat, the kind of anger that leveled cities. That's how they differ - Diane's anger like sparks, short-fueled and flashy, while his anchors him to the depths, dragging him down and swallowing everything in its wake.
"Prove it," she challenges him, not flinching for a second from his fury, "let her off the hook, spare her, she doesn't need to get dragged into your disaster. Not her."
The worst feeling in the world is realizing he's not strong enough - he can't do it - he can't let her go, not like that.
He smashes his fists into the wall until they're bloody and bruised - a scene that rivaled their relationship in beauty - before he finally goes to find her.
.
.
.
"You've been smoking again."
It was an observation - not an accusation, no, Elizabeth was never one to point out flaws, especially ones that he was well aware of.
He didn't know how she could tell, maybe she could smell it on his clothes, or sense the way he edgily pulled at the fabric of his jacket.
He lets out a breath and he can see the look on her face - like she's half expecting a pillar of smoke to erupt from between his lips, an angry dragon's roar. Instead, his breath comes out in silvery wisps like the curls of her hair.
"Elizabeth," he says her name like he quite enjoys the taste. "We need to talk."
She opens her mouth, then slowly shuts it; she can't quite bring herself to say his name.
"No," she says defiantly, which is different for her. He finds himself mildly amused, before remembering why he was there in the first place.
"I don't want to talk." She tells him, she looks up and her eyes are speckled with the shine that only tears could give. A knife sinks into his chest and he is short of breath - he never wanted it to end like this. "I don't want to."
"What are you afraid of?" He asks her gently, reaching forward without thinking to move a stray piece of hair that had blown into her face away. It hit him like an ice cold bucket of water when she flinched away from his touch.
"You."
He wishes he could say he was expecting those words, that Elizabeth had every right to speak them so confidently and he should let her keep her distance, but every fibre of his being screamed out in frustration, how could he have let her, the only person who'd stood a chance at caring about him, fear him? How could he have sat and watched while he left her waiting at the end of the street for him?
Never again, he promises himself, and for once, he is the one to initiate the hug.
Don't give up on me, he begs her, holding her so close on the thought that it would be his last time, she smells like cherry blossoms and winter breeze.
Her fingers curl around the collar of his jacket and she cries onto his shoulder, because she's a little bit broken, too.
.
.
.
i literally made this as a shame account? to post everything terrible ive ever written just to get it out of my system?
also please ignore this drafty nonsense, im just here to ruin melizabeth