Claire sits numbly on the lightweight surface of a high thread-count mattress which sinks, bright yellow fingernails, white tips, contrasting darkly with the lace white duvet (like everything in the Block mansion, the duvet is white, and it's simply just another reminder of how Claire is always with something borrowed), pieces of pale skin peeling off around hardening bruises. She lets herself cry for a while, because he mattered to her, and Claire thinks that she won't be one of those type of girls who are constantly in denial, circling destructive relationships; she fingers a CD album and thinks that Cam is a bit messed up too, because only a messed-up person would break up a five-year relationship through an CD, but then he was always different - he was supposed to be different.
Swallowing a spoonful of ice cream, she lets the sweet yet slimy blob of liquid seep down into the crevices of her throat, rocky road flavors (remember, Claire, darling, rocky road goes straight to your thighs) and she stares down at her body and places the container of Ben and Jerry's, the only two guys that she could ever rely on, on the side of her cabinet, grabs the keys to the front door, and exits, varsity jacket draped around faint outlines of weak, always weak, shoulders, the traces of tears forming in somewhat publicly presentable eyes.
Her head throbs, a constant pounding in her ears, and she discards the pearl headband upon the floor too because for a moment, it seems as though everything is related to him – the ice that causes cars to skid upon the road, the collection of children who make snow angels on the street, everything and anything, no matter how convoluted it seems. There are wide open fields of cornstalks growing, some higher than others, shadowed by looming oak trees, the sun bleeding through their overwhelming stature; a plethora of colors combine to form the sunset, a waning moon the only source of light as she forces herself forward.
Threaded feet create blisters upon themselves, veins throbbing as sharp rocks are dug into them; she takes the road not taken by most, hands brushing by the underbrush of the trees, and she spins in the middle of an abandoned forest, slow blanketing from the top of the trees, a shield from the rest of the horrid world. She scratches her fingers until a droplet of blood molds into the damp palm of her hand which collects salty tears and deposits them upon the empty ground, unpaved route. The sounds of water crashing onto a beach echo in the crevices of Claire's mind and glazed-over eyes look over the bracelet which clings tightly to her hand; opal beads with his and her name molded together, as they were meant to be, forever and always (but forever and always is another promises, and promises, like hearts, were made to be broken) and rips it from her hand, letting the beads scatter as the colored strings fray apart, cast into the depths of a slowly flowing river. The bracelet settles at the bottom, then rising backwards, floating at the surface as the river flows downstream.
Golden-flecked eyes stare off into the sunset; she sits underneath the swaying branches of a willow tree, and collapses, tears streaming down worn-out cheeks, flustered and reddened from the intensification of winter, a harbinger of doom to come (winter is coming, they say, winter and deaths and famine is coming); snow blankets the ground in layers, pockets of grass opening up into the depths of the planet's molten core. In the depths of a wide imagination, she waves herself into opaque balustrades, rays of sunlight streaming down, filling empty courtyards with inevitable rays of hope (hope is nothing more than sentiment, perhaps, and sentiment is an emotion found on the losing side) and it's marvelous for a moment. Storms of ire thunder down upon the picturesque mansions with their white-picket fences and lengthy blank limousines, miniature dogs and miniature children trailing the outskirts of the area; one of the smaller dogs leaps towards the exit, the children dragging them back, and Claire feels like how she thinks the dog must feel – trapped, in a world where one doesn't belong.
Victorian-style mansions line the street; the residual warmth from rubbing hands together does little to ward off the cold; an array of children line the streets, freckles dotting their cheeks as though it's something that makes them unique, as if being unique is something to be admirable; her bare feet patter lightly, making imprints upon the cold snow; it sends a tingling through her rainbow veins, clipped over and quickly suppressed as she passes by a funeral home, rows of people with hollowed eyes and caved out collarbones, and Claire wonders when everybody had grown up, leaving her behind. The sun sets late across the ivory coast; for a moment, she lets the crevices of a blank mind seep into depths of dark water, her mind wandering to thoughts of him (what could have been, what could still be) and a flood of rain flows from watery blue eyes, veins tinged vermilion from the constant rubbing.
Claire tilts her powdered chin towards the colorless midnight sky and lying down underneath the twinkle of starling and empty atmosphere, she empties her mind and starts a new life as a new day begins.