S.M owns all characters
All mistakes are my own.
I remember my mother and I sitting down in the living room. The TV was roaring behind us, mindless. Some TV show that never made it past the first five episodes.
Her feet were propped up on the coffee table and a cigarette was glowing between two stained fingers. She sat in front of me, her eyes looking into mine, but not really seeing me. A haze hung between us.
She brought the filter to her lips and pulled the toxins into her lung. Holding them there, her back arched against the back of the couch as she struggled to keep the smoke in her body.
Her eyes began to water and I watched in wonder as the veins of blood that crept along the whites of her eyes shimmered like gems under water. Her cheeks puffed as she tilted her head back, puckered her lips and blew the smoke up and away.
I can still hear that sigh of content.
Her eyes fell to mine and she offered it to me.
I shook my head and put my hands up.
Her eyebrows pulled together as she looked at me before she thrust the burning tip into my palm, burning my life line.
I yelped and pulled my hand away, my eyes watering. She held it up to me again, her eyebrows raised at me.
I frowned at her and gingerly took it from her fingers, my hand arched away from the embers. I held it away from me and watched the smoke lazily dance in the dimmed light.
"Don't think, just do" her voice was heavy, laced with that day's fix and I bit my lip and stared at the lipstick stained filter
"I don't think that's a good idea" I mumbled and looked up at her.
"You'll need it" she said.
I frowned at her, my free hand clenching at my side.
"I'm not you" I said quietly.
"Not yet" she said and nodded towards the cigarette again.
"Not ever" I insisted and held it away from me. "It won't take me."
"It takes everyone."
"They let it" I said and look at her.
"You're naive" she says, her voice to slurred to sound angry.
I frown at her again.
Just wanting her to shut up.
I looked down at the burning tobacco and then up at her glazed eyes.
Don't think, just do.
I growled under my breath and closed my eyes; bring the burning stick to my lips and pulling the smoke in.
It burned, searing my throat as the heat swirled through my body. I felt it in my nose, coating the skin as it branded me from the inside. Coughing overtook my body as it desperately tried to rid the chemicals from my body. I felt my lungs reject the smoke and my stomach heaved. I clasped my hand over my mouth as I fought the urge to vomit.
I could hear her laughing.
"Happy?" I wheezed as I whipped the tears out of my eyes.
"That's my girl" she said and pushed her shrinking body up, her legs shaking. She grabbed the bottle that sat beside my crossed legs on the table and wrapped her boney fingers around the neck, tipping her head back and guzzling the last of it.
"When James gets here, send him up will yeah?" she called as she staggered from the room, her hair tumbling down her ridge back in greasy curls.
"Yeah, Mom" I mumbled as I stubbed out the cigarette and coughed again, my eyes filling with tears again.
James didn't come that night, and the geode stone I bought her broke our TV.
He didn't come the next day either, and the water pipes flooded the basement.
Or the next, and our stove lit the kitchen a blaze.
He didn't even come the next, and a tornado destroyed the left side of the house.
By the end of the week our house was gone, and Mom had popped the last of the pills, to kill the pain, and herself. She died in the bathtub, the water overflowing along the porcelain lips.
I've been smoking ever since.
xxx
Edward came into my life the day my mother left it.
I sat on the straight back black fold up chair near the podium, my ankles crossed as I stared between my slightly parted knees to the ground. I swirled my finger around and watched the tiny stones follow the movement.
The Priest was droning on, the heat was relentless, and the people behind me were discussing all of Mom's bad habits.
The sun was angry today, ignoring all pleas for mercy. The rays beat against my black clothed back as I listened to how God was forgiving my mother for all her sins, even though we all know he was paid to say it.
No one was listening to the service.
The man beside me was murmuring into a cell phone, his leather gloves stretched over his clenched hands.
His voice was clipped and angry.
"I don't give a fuck, you make fucking time" he paused to listen to the person on the other side, his jaw working "I didn't give you another option" he states, his free hand pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just get it done" he snaps in a whisper. "I don't care how, just fucking do it" and he snapped the phone shut just as it began to vibrate again.
"Mind going somewhere else to do your business calls?" I snapped, turning my head to look at him, his eyes glowing a bright blue. I my frown deepened "Manipulator."
He scowled at me, his jaw grinding and his fists clenching before he pushed himself to his feet and pushed past the people behind us.
I glared at his retreating back before turning forwards and watching them lower my mother's body into the ground.
Condolences followed.
The absent father showed his face after seventeen years of absence.
His body was cold, distant; as he looked down at me with only a look a Normal can give an Elemental. His hand patted my back but it was without comfort.
He was playing a part.
I thanked the people who took their time to come and tell bullshit lies about my mother at her burial and sidestepped anyone who tried to hug me.
People said it was my grief, that I was pushing away their love because I was heartbroken. But really, it was because I didn't want them blubbering on me, let alone breathing.
They didn't know I was just like my mother.
If they did, they wouldn't have tried to touch me. Instead they would have taken those looks they thought were stolen and told their stories of me, just as they told them of my mother.
Grains of time slipped through my fingers as I watched people pass me by.
The hours ticked by, the vicious movements of the clock's hands driving me outside and away from it all.
I was sitting on the concrete steps that once led to my home when he walked up.
The man who was playing Dad for the day was standing off to the side, screaming into his phone as the insurance people told him that they don't cover someone if they commit suicide.
His voice was rubbing against my nerves as I flicked my lighter again and again, heating the metal with each burst of light.
"Yeah? Well fuck you too, buddy!" he yelled, pulling the phone away from his ear and holding the mouth piece to his lips.
"Fucking imbecile" I muttered as I pulled a cigarette from my pocket and pursing my lips around the filter.
I felt, more then I saw the shadow loom over me, blocking the scorching heat from my neck. Someone cleared their throat before asking in a honey sweet voice "Aren't you a little young to be smoking?"
I don't look up as I flicked my lighter "didn't ask you" I mumbled around the cylinder. I breathed in the smoke and blew out and up towards the figure.
I heard him inhale deeply "Got one to spare?" he asked as he looked down at me eyeing the smoke as it rose from between my lips.
I looked up and scowled at Cell Phone Guy "Nope."
The man's coat was long, the end brushing the stone ridden walk away as he moved. His eyes were covered this time in reflecting sunglasses that were perched on the end of his nose. His hair looked as if he'd stuck his finger in a light socket, the ends reaching up towards the sun as it reflected a strange mixture of honey and copper tones along his angled features.
He pursed his lips before pulling his sunglasses off and tucking them inside his coat.
"I think I may owe you an apology" he sighed, his fingers running through his hair.
"And if I gave a shit about what you thought, I may say you're right" I pulled the tobacco into my lungs and blew it up, raising a brow at him "was there something else you wanted?"
"Edward" Daddy dearest clapped Cell Phone Guy on the back before shaking his hand.
I grimaced.
"Charlie" Edward greeted, his smile mirroring my own.
"Thank you for coming so quickly" said my father as he continued to shake Edward's hand.
"I was in town on business" said Edward, his eyes flicking to their grip before he gently pulled his hand from Charlie's grip "it was on the way."
Charlie nodded before looking over Edward's shoulder and down at me. He frowned as I puffed smoke into the air.
"Isabella" his lips were tight "you know how I feel about you smoking, don't you."
I rolled my eyes and flicked the soot "And I told you I didn't give a fuck what you think."
Charlie's jaw grinded as his eyes narrowed towards me "What did I tell you about that mouth of yours?"
"Is that rhetorical?"
His nostrils flared as we stared each other down. Charlie broke contact first, his eyes turning back to Edward and smiling. "I'm sure you're in a rush; let me get the paper work."
"Actually there are things that still need to be sorted" said Edward, looking down at me.
"It's all in the paper work" said Charlie as he turned away from us and walked to his car. He unlocked the front seat and grabbed a manila folder. "I'm her legal guardian and I signed all the necessary paperwork with my lawyer after we talked."
I pushed myself up from the steps, dropping the butt to the sidewalk; I ground out the last of the heat with the toe of my high heeled shoe. I folded my arms over my chest and looked at my father.
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"You haven't told her" said Edward frowning at my father.
"I didn't need to" he shrugged and handed the papers to Edward "Go ahead and look them over, they're all there."
"Tell me what?" I asked, but they weren't listening to me.
"Seventeen" says Edward and looked at me, his eyes lingering on my face.
"For another two months, I got the right."
Edward grimaced as his thumb flipped each page of the folder.
"Can you please stop fucking ignoring me!" I snapped at Charlie, my anger beginning to consume me.
He turned to look at me "I'm sending you away" he flipped his hand in the air like he was shooing a fly.
I felt my mouth gape "What? Are you fucking kidding me? This is some sort of sick joke right?"
"No joke, sweetheart" sneered the absent father "I got shit to do, so you gotta go."
"You can't do that" I argued, my fists clenching "you have no right."
"Says I can right there" he hooked a thumb at the papers Edward held "I got every right."
I looked over at Cell Phone Guy, my eyes pleading with his to tell me Charlie was lying but when his eyes meet mine they held only pity.
Pity for that young girl who just lost her mother and was unwanted by her father.
For me.
I bit my lip against the anger what welled inside of me.
My fists clenched as I looked from Edward to Charlie.
I felt the heat flick between my shoulder blades. The pain a welcomed feeling as I stood before the two men. It crawled along my spin, inching heated fingers along my bones, searing my body from the inside. My fingers itched to flex, to control as the rage closed my throat.
"Charlie" said Edward, his voice warning, but it didn't matter.
He was to slow.
And I was too fast.
The hinges of the door squealed behind us as the weight of the house shifted under the pressure. The glass shattered, hundreds of diamonds rained down over us, the flat surfaces catching the dying sun.
"Isabella, you better not—" said my father, his eyes wide flicking back and forth between my own and the house behind us
"Goodbye Charlie."
The bricks lodged themselves free from the cement that made the house stand.
I don't remember much from that day, but I do remember the feeling of the ground shaking beneath my feet as thousands of stones fell from the sky.
Charlie didn't die that day.
But a little part of me did.
It was a month before he was released from the hospital with nothing more than two broken legs, courtesy of the magic workers.
He would live a normal life.
By that time I had already spent three weeks at the Senates School for the Elementally Gifted.
Normal never entered my life again.
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