"We can deeply love our poison."
- Maggie Young
Why were they together? That was a question that followed Riza wherever she went. She felt it burning beneath her skin no matter what she did. She could not scrub it off in the shower, she could not lose it when she went jogging, she could not drown it in alcohol and she could not even keep it from singing her to sleep at night. Why?
The wineglass broke, shattering into hundreds of tiny pieces that flew all across the room. For a second – both short as a blink of an eye and long as a lifetime – there was nothing in her world but silvery glass and deep red drops of blood. A thud, and then… nothing. Riza's brown eyes were fixed on Lila's motionless body on the floor. She looked tiny, tinier than she had ever looked. Fragile. Broken. She had broken her.
She did not scream, not outwardly, but there was a storm inside her when she picked Lila's unconscious body up and carried her to the velvet couch. She got a rag under her head where she was bleeding, got long strands of brown hair off her face and prepared to go fetch a doctor. As Riza was putting on her coat she glanced at Lila and it crossed her mind that one day there might not be a doctor skilled enough to patch her up after what she has done to her.
She felt cold before stepping out to the rain.
"Please come", she had said in the most pathetic of ways. "Please come." It made Lila sick to her stomach. She made herself sick to her stomach. Everything about her was utterly disgusting to the core: the way she looked, the way she felt… But most of all, the way she kept asking for Riza's help as if she was a goddess who could take all her pain away with a snap of her fingers. Lila despised her own weakness to overcome any obstacle on her own, her tendency to cling to the blonde like she could somehow prevent her from drowning in her own mess.
She had called her again. In the middle of the night as if she was dying. Lila grimaced, raised her knife-holding hand and stabbed her own body in blind rage. Why? Why did she have to be that way? She needed help but she did not know what kind of help. And, she thought, in her uncertainty she had decided to need Riza's help even though in her heart she knew it was not the right kind of help. Riza could not help her. Riza could not save her. But she was there when she needed her. Maybe, just maybe, that had been enough to seal it.
That night Lila let Riza find her covered in blood.
With two dozens of red roses in her hands, Riza rang Lila's doorbell. It was no one's birthday, no one's name day, not any official holiday either. Just a good ol' romancing day. The brunette had always loved flowers, especially roses, so the blonde's gift managed to create a smile brighter than the sun. It also probably had something to do with the fact that Lila had been feeling generally better for a while now, Riza thought. It could get bad quickly, but she did not bother herself with the thought much longer.
The brunette was glowing. Happiness was downright radiating from her. Riza was sure she had never laughed that much in bed. It was almost strange. Lila was abnormally open, vocal and innovative, and it left a tiny, tiny doubt in the blonde's mind. After they had played enough and Lila had removed herself to the bathroom to tidy herself up, Riza took a little look around and found a possible motive for the brunette's unusually good mood. A sock behind a bookshelf that she knew belonged to neither of them.
Riza supposed a new low was inevitable but she had not expected to see one all so soon. Accusations. Curses. Denial. Screaming. Crying. Was their world truly so fragile? Why were they together? The question was almost like a lullaby, the only glimpse of reason in their illogical lives. Perhaps it was the fact that she needed Lila as desperately as she needed her. Perhaps it was because they both loved so poorly that there was really no other outcome in life: why would they not be together? Perhaps it was that she knew she would feel like a failure if she left. Perhaps all of these and more, perhaps none of these. Regardless, she knew there was everything wrong. But she could not leave. And she knew Lila could not leave. She prayed to the God she did not believe in that one of them dying wasn't the only way to make them stop drinking poison.