Title: In A Jar
Rating: PG-13, angst
Summary: Ryan/Marissa
Disclaimer: I don't own anything etc...
Feedback: Please. Make me a better writer. If you have the time, reply.
Notes: I've really been writing some pretty fluffy stuff lately, I guess this is just a return to my roots.
In A Jar
_________
"You're too late," she says and he can see in her eyes that he is.
"I'm sorry," he says and it hangs in the air like a broken vow.
His eyes are between mist and dawn and every shade in between. She can see now the vividness of emotions he keeps in a jar. Tonight the top has come
undone and every spore and whisper of peace floats in the air like dewdrops.
In a jar there is no pain. In a jar he sits on top of the world, the king of his heart and there is no one trying to strike down his carefully constructed walls. And
in the jar she is a pretty little apparition he can't touch. You can't live in a jar, bottled up and starving.
The hunger has eaten through the glass sphere he surrounds himself in and opened up a guest book of lopsided images. He is forced to look at his own
signature and see the card of betrayal that rests on his shoulder.
He steps forward and she retreats further into herself; further against the wooden door. He stops for fear she will turn around and leave him standing to taste
the wind alone.
"It didn't mean anything," he says and his lips twinge on the cliched rhythm of words. "She was there...and you didn't want me."
"I didn't know what I wanted." The indignation bites through the air like a sharp storm of hail on baby skin as star-seed tears run down her cheeks.
The shower of her words make him feel dirty.
He shakes his head; feels the barrage of sympathy slowly retreat to anger. "You made your choice. It wasn't me."
"I didn't know what I wanted," she insists. "But you couldn't even wait for me to make up my mind. God, Ryan, if I hadn't walked in you were... you were
going to sleep with her."
She plants a seed of doubt; lays it out there and douses it with tainted water, making him uncertain as he reaps his regret up in heavy droves. "I..."
Her hand comes up; a pointed jab with her milk-white finger illuminated in the darkness. "Don't! Don't you insult me. You would have."
He takes a step closer, crowding her. "You don't know that. Hell, I don't even know that. Maybe I would have. But, Marissa, maybe I wouldn't have."
Her eyes turn to stone, a dark cold glare that sends chills down his spine. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? How noble, Ryan. How fucking noble."
He closes his eyes, sees her image anyway and reopens his tired lids. "I'm supposed to apologize because someone wanted me? You've been jerking me
around, what was I supposed to do?"
Somewhere she finds a heavy burst of energy mixed in with the weightless feeling of repentance. "Nothing. You should have done nothing. You proved what
you were tonight. Just a street hood. A little boy looking to get laid. I used to think you were special; that we had something. I know now...you're nothing.
We have nothing." Her words are sure, definite.
His eyes danced with fear. "Marissa."
Her name is like a beacon trying to reign in civility. She is too far gone for that though.
He tries to touch her, to show her that she's wrong, but she backs away until her body is flush with the hard door and she lets out a whimper of pain form where the wood is biting into her flesh.
She can't look at him now. If she does, she might take it all back and she can't do that. She can't go back. "Get away from me. Go back to where you came
from. Go back to the pool house. Go back to Chino. Just go."
The air is bitter on his tongue, it tastes like hopelessness and it smells of desperation. He realizes there is nothing left to do tonight.
She is a pretty little apparition he can't touch.
___________
end.