Hey guys. I swear I haven't given up on In Perfect Time! I've been rather… flighty lately. Anyway, this will probably be a short fic… at least for now. I'm thinking around four short chapters – though not as short as this. Enjoy it and review, por favor!
(As usual, I own nothing)
Prologue:
We are always running for the thrill of it, thrill of it
Always pushing up the hill searching for the thrill of it
On and on and on we are calling out and out again
Never looking down, I'm just in awe of what's in front of me
Catch me I'm falling down
Catch me I'm falling down
Don't stop, just keep going on
I'm your shoulder lean upon
So come on, deliver from inside
All we got is tonight
-Wiz Khalifa "The Thrill"
Present Day
It's been years. So many, many years that this game we play, this endless intrigue, seems as though it never actually started. It is a game of claws and teeth, sweat and sugar and the taste of lingering blood. Like vampires, we suck the life out of this bar, this sad shallow city: hometown of the lonely search for a quick high – any escape at all will do, just please please please let me not be myself for an hour or so. Of this scum – these bottom feeders who want forever to rise above, though they are chained to the floorboards of smoky, dark dives – we are the worst.
Most of these people don't know what they are. They see this loneliness as temporary. They believe in love, in the small chances of meeting, clashing, grasping eyes across the room. They are not acting, somehow solid and real in this world of faked bodies and minds. They are real because what they pursue is real.
Edward and I, we see this bar for what it is. This is not a fairy tale. When I look around, the men clamoring to buy me drinks are not prince charmings. Even Edward, especially Edward, is not prince charming. I am far from an innocent princess or damsel in distress, as lost and alone as I am.
Twenty years ago, I would have insisted that true love existed, that the universe was perfectly operated by a benevolent God. Twenty years ago, it was obvious to me that I was meant to be with my very best friend in the world, that he would turn to me in slow motion with his Technicolor eyes seeing me as if for the first time one day soon. I dreamed of weddings, of pure white symbolism.
But twenty years ago… twenty years ago, I was naïve. Twenty years ago, I was stupid. Twenty years ago, I was ugly.