[cha0s.]
the world has forsaken my girl.
pre; afoul.
ainslee.
He blinked; slow and steady. He was always like that.
I wanted to hurt him, hurt him like he hurt me. Everything he had ever said to me, all of the good moments – they meant nothing now but a few bullet-hole wounds in my heart. The gun was still aimed and firing.
The world blared into perspective, respectively so, and my hands hit my ears with remarkable force. "Stop…"
"I need to tell you," his voice says in desperation; I squeeze my eyelids closed tightly. His unusually graceful, unusually gentle hands scrabble to pull mine down.
"Stop, stop, stop," I can feel my own little breaths on my arms, scarred arms and skin heavy with sin. Ragged breathing, recognized as my own, and tears wrenched their salty existence from my lashes.
"Ainslee, please…" Shame; that's what his voice is. Shameful.
"Stop, no!" I bury my face into the crook of my arm; into the scars. The stupid, heavy skin; naïve transgressions. The burden of disturbance.
"Ains, listen. Please, you've just got to understand…"
At this, eyes open wide, and I glance up at him furiously; painfully. It's somewhat of a grim realization to find the same elemental feelings in his own blue eyes. His hands remove mine from my ears in a sad kind of delicacy.
When I fail to resist his tempting touch, he takes this as a good omen, and reaches out to brush his fingers down my cheek. He gingerly rubs a tear from the soft skin. "It's not that we could never be in love. Love is not a crime, therefore it is not wrong. But we – that is to say, you and I – could…never be together as a whole. I-I only wish that I could take everything back. Because being with you would mean breaking you, and despite our feelings currently, I have no intention of breaking you."
I identify the grief lurking in his voice but I am ignorant. "No – I know why we can't be together and it doesn't have a damn thing to do with me. At least, not in the sense of 'breaking me'." The words are burning the sky down; thus far, I have resorted to choking them out, helplessly sputtering from time to time. "You keep things from me. Big things, things I ought to know. Yet you can't bring yourself to trust me enough to tell me."
"No, that's not–"
I prolong, hearing him but not quite understanding the words. "So maybe you should stop being so damn frightened to trust me if you really love me." I swipe at my eyes and bravely
(foolishly, a voice reprimands)
square my shoulders. "By the way, you don't have to worry about breaking me."
He stutters. I ignore him.
Coldly push by, long strides to the staircase. Pause, turn.
And then truth; I hit him with it scathingly.
"You already have."