Chapter 13
Carmilla was so close to her. Yet, all Laura could feel was the cold, creeping in of a void, a distance from her. She looked at those deep, longing eyes, the trembling lips that she had heatedly kissed only moments ago. They were all familiar, she knew this, but her brain only registered a startling lack of recognition. The shocking jolt when you smile and wave frantically at someone on the street, only to realize, under their affronted gaze, that it is not who you thought it was, and you have made yourself look a fool. Carmilla's plea broke the silence,
"Laura," her voice shook, her hand reached forward and grasped one of Laura's delicately, waiting for the small blonde girl to pull back. She didn't, but she didn't squeeze back. Her hand stayed limp, her eyes stayed unfocused, she didn't move and didn't speak. "Laura, I'm so sorry. I should've said something sooner but…but I…how was I supposed to even tell you about the monster that I am. And she…she's so much worse. She's done things to me, things to make me help her…it's not an excuse, I know, but-"
"Get out," Laura's mouth moved numbly at first, her eyes still a blank, unwavering slate.
"Laura, please," Carmilla's voice cracked as she begged, "just let me talk to you. Let me explain." Laura's eyes moved from their fixed position on some point of space far beyond Carmilla to finally register on the brunette's anguished face,
"Not you," she mumbled, and her eyes turned slowly to Danny, "Get out," she repeated, just as slow, just as evenly. The red head's eyebrows knit together in confusion.
"But, Laura," she objected, "I can't leave you here with her! Look at what she's been doing! She's just as bad as we thought!" Laura's eyes remained locked on Danny.
"Get out!" it was no longer quiet, it was a shout, it was desperate. "This is what you wanted. Right, Danny? You did it. So get out!" The tears flowed freely from Laura's eyes now, and her voice teetered chokingly on the edge of a sob. Danny straightened herself, and her formerly gloating eyes hardened.
"All right. But don't come crying to me to fix it when she breaks your heart. A monster like that," she spat at Carmilla, her eyes stabbing towards the brunette whose downcast eyes didn't even lift in acknowledgement, "can never love you." With that, Danny snatched the towel out of Laura's hand and clutched it to her head as she made her way out the door, slamming it behind her. Laura's eyes snapped shut in the shock wave of Danny's exit, and she pulled in a deep breath.
Carmilla finally looked up. Laura's eyes had drifted shut in Danny's absence, and Carmilla watched her simply breathe in and out, and Carmilla's insides screamed for the honey blonde to say something, anything. After what seemed like years, the warm brown eyes drifted open, shimmering with tears, and found Carmilla's searching gaze.
"I trusted you," the words slipped from her lips in a whisper, a gentle wind rustling through the trees, belying the hurricane howling in its wake. Don't say that, say anything but that, Carmilla's heart cried. Now she was wishing for silence again, for the calm before the storm instead of the cylcone of regret, guilt, anguish that was terrorizing her heart in the wake of Laura's quiet. "I talked to Will, you know," Laura continued, her eyes locked firmly on Carmilla, pinning the brunette under her gaze. "Last night, when I ran out into the woods, after the whole thing, he came and found me. He told me you were his sister, he told me what he was, and he told me you were a monster," Laura's words were quiet and steady, but that last one, it screamed at Carmilla in her own voice, it bounced around the walls of her brain and seeped lower, pooling slowly in her heart; Not her. Don't let her use that word, Carmilla's heart ached, but she stayed silent, letting Laura finish, bracing herself for the cruel words of fear, of loathing, that she had heard so many times before. "But I didn't believe him," Laura whispered, and Carmilla's eyes brightened slightly, "I didn't believe him because I love you-" Carmilla wasn't sure if it was the sudden snapping up of her head or the gasp that jumped from her lips that cut off Laura's words, but she was thankful for the pause, as she would no longer have been able to hear the smaller girl over the hammering of her heart in her own ears at those three little words.
"You what?" Carmilla interrupted. It was quiet, but laced with all of the surprise and wonder that she felt fluttering, trying to break through the surface of that black mere of anguish she felt suffocating the cavity of her chest. Laura looked at her, and something flitted across the smaller girl's eyes in the realization of what she had just said. Her lower lip began to quiver, and her eyes welled further, but she held back the tears as she spoke.
"I love you," she said it again. But this time, there was no light, no spark. Instead, the words echoed with the rushing emptiness of a dark cavern. And all the light, all the warmth Carmilla had ever seen, ever felt in her life, seemed to be vanquished from existence, erased from memory, as if it had never happened at all. As if she had been born and nursed of nothing but dark, nothing but cold, nothing but emptiness.
"That's what hurts the most," a tear rolled down Laura's cheek, her voice quavering and her fingers that Carmilla still held, had begun to desperately grasp her own. Whether Laura knew she was doing it or not, Carmilla wasn't sure. "I love you, and it's awful. It's like…like I gave you this piece of me, and, you could've just given it back, you could've just walked away. But you took it, and you used it, you used it for horrible things, and then you tore it to pieces. And now there's a hole in me…" Laura's words disappeared amongst breathy sobs, and her hand retracted from Carmilla's to wipe her eyes. She yanked her gaze away from the brunette's hollow, dark eyes, staring emptily back at her, and cleared her throat "I have to go now, I'm going to stay with a friend. I don't know when I will be back," Laura muttered, her voice barely holding together as she turned away and grabbed her keys, her backpack, stuffed some clothes into it (but didn't bother to dress herself further than her pajamas) and walked out the door in one fell swoop, closing it tightly behind her.
"I love you too," the words floated away from Carmilla, uselessly muffled against the door, as she sank onto Laura's bed and her quickly falling tears were caught by a buttercup-yellow pillowcase.