NOW
"You are bleak
You are beautiful
No matter what they say..."
The girl spun and danced, her dark hair falling onto her bare shoulders as she held her pale arms wide, the only sound in the room coming from an old battered CD player. The singer's unique voice rose and fall over the basic melody, creating such an atmosphere that if you stumbled upon them, it could quite easily take your breath away.
"Sing it out..."
Her eyes were closed, and it was quite surprising that she didn't lose her balance, not once, as the room was devoid of all light. The heavy black velvet curtains were closed, not allowing even a chink of light from the unusually bright winter afternoon outside, and darkness was the only thing visible at first. When your eyes got used to the surroundings you could perhaps see a young girl, in a white dress, spinning around with such an expression on her face that one could have imagined she was somewhere else entirely.
"Sing it out..."
A faint smile was upon her face, matching the sheer ecstasy that anyone who knew her could have told you would be there, that indescribable feeling she got only from dancing. Her movements were fluid and beautiful to watch, and not even the slight click that indicated the changing of the tracks could put a break or pause in the flowing liquid that was the dance.
"Your new best friends, your confidence
And I'll be here when you get home
When you get home..."
The music died to a simple bassline, and voices could be heard.
"I can't feel the same about you anymore,
I can't feel the same about you anymore..."
A look of pain briefly crossed the girl's face, penetrating her consciousness as nothing else would, and with one quick movement she crossed the room and sharply jabbed the off button. Those lines must have struck a chord, one the girl did not like to remember, and she pulled on her thick winter coat, deciding that she'd done enough practice for one night.
Her breath struck the crisp winter air like shards of glass, causing a cloud of mist to stream through the air as the girl breathed in and out. She liked it here, in England, she decided, much better than America. She could tell herself it was because of the accents or the weather, but she'd be lying. The reality is, she liked it because it wasn't America. Because none of the people she'd once known were here, forcing her to live out the same painful memories repeatedly.
She wouldn't forget him, she couldn't forget him. But that didn't mean she had to remember him, day in, day out, where he was, who he was...
And 'was' seemed to be all that was left; the past tense, things that could have been, but now, never would. 'Was' and 'why' were in abundance, why did he have to be there, that day, why did they have to have argued before he left, why him? why why why why whywhywhywhy...
And, of course, the only thing left to say was: "IT WASN'T FAIR!"
A few startled birds hurriedly fled their trees as the girl screamed out her grievances to the world, hands clenched into fists so hard that the knuckles were white, eyes tight shut, mouth red and raw and open. The words that had been building up and bubbling over, things left unsaid and things that should never have been said, all of them could finally burst free to the open air, all of them were finally allowed out.
The never-ending stream of words finally slowed to a stop, and the girl cautiously opened her eyes, as though the world could have changed, as though anything could have happened. It seemed the same, but who could tell? To know if the world had changed you would have had to know all the exact details of what the world had been like in the first place, and if there was someone who did know that, they certainly weren't telling anyone.
But something was going to happen, the girl was certain. The air was charged with tension, and she could only hope it wasn't going to happen to her. She pushed back her hair from her face with one shaking hand, and ran down the steps and towards her house.
"Recovery..."