J is for Jazz
("And you want to live forever in the lights you make.
When we were young we used to say,
That you only hear the music when your heart begins to break.
Now we are the Kids from Yesterday."
~ My Chemical Romance, 'The Kids from Yesterday')
It's been so long, no matter what looking at her forever-sixteen face tells you. Decades since it was all over, in fact.
A lifetime ago.
But she thinks of them – of him – for every time she blinks. Their faces are seared behind her eyelids, smiling and loving but gone all the same. She never stays in one place long, but all over the world there are echoes of them, reminders that strike her like hot salt pokers that stop an open wound from healing.
In the middle of the ocean on a clear day, the water is the impossible blue of Will's eyes; the papers are flooded with women's rights movements, and in the way the Suffragettes hold themselves, she sees Charlotte; when she's all alone in yet another house that could never be home, and the only sound is the tick-tick-ticking of the clocks' cogs and gears and mechanisms, she can't help but imagine Henry tinkering away; as she walks aimlessly around the West End and regards the theatre posters depicting gorgeous actresses, all she can see in their aristocratic features is Jessamine's pretty face; if the grass is too green, she thinks of Gabriel Lightwood's curious stare on her back; in arrogant, power-hungry politicians, she can find Benedict.
It's the 1930's now, and jazz music is floating through the phonogram in a smooth harmony of brass and strings. She closes her eyes as the record spins, twirling alone over the marble floors with an invisible partner as a single tear slips over her sad-smiling face. He'd have loved jazz, she knew. But then, that was always the worst – she cold never listen to music without it leading back to Jem, and what he would never get the chance to hear.
And we know she's immortal, 'cause she has a cameo at the end of City of Glass. Fun for her.
Review – if you could be reborn into any era, which would it be? I'm cool with this one – women's rights and interwebz FTW! But it kind of wish I could skip, you know? I wanna wear a corset and win bets and swordfight and argue with sexist pricks and shout 'YOUR RELIGION IS FLAWED' at the obsessive Middle-Age nutcases.
But that's just me. :D
Oh, and a shout-out to danielle-redfern because 6 is my lucky number, and she was my 66th reviewer. *Dies of happiness* Gods, I LOVE YOU GUYS! I don't thank you enough for the reviews, and I'm sorry if I didn't reply, but I get that spiky little pang of glee whenever I see a new one. THANK YOU FOR THAT! I have the best minions in the world (fuck you, Bond villains XD).