No. 4
There's an old man, a harlot and a young girl in the end of the alley.
Money taken, words whispered to the girl from plump, lipstick-caked mouth, from the face of evil.
The girl is crying.
The man takes a step forward – veined, knobby hand grabbing the little girl by the waist. Her cheek is pale.
I'm seeing red.
Cold handle in my palm, metal flashing through the air, warm waters encroaching gray sand shores, spilling into my hands and skin. Waters are red, like the sunset over Lake Washington.
The girl screams. Her footsteps are fast, sprinting away like a rabbit from a hunter with death in his eyes.
Wind twisting violently through the trees, ripping pine needles from their branches, moving the forest like fur on a beast's back. Mountaintops of snow gleaming like silver in light.
"AAAaaaaaaagh!" Knife sinking into flesh over and over again, like stone dropping into whitewater, like trees dipping their long limbs when they are felled.
"Lena – Lena, stop!" Suddenly Adrian is standing there, gloved hand outstretched. How had I not noticed him earlier, when the redness was splashing across my face and my mouth was twisted in a howl of rage?
The knife clatters out of my hands, my fingers twitching painfully at the release from their deadlock across the aluminum hilt, and I drop the man, his long-dead body hitting the ground. The tears are spilling fast from my eyes and I tear my mask from my face, smearing red across my cheeks. I can't look at him. I've fucked up. I've done bad again.
Oh, god.
Oh, God.
My nails are caked with drying blood that I know won't wash away for a very long time, and I can smell the metal in the air. My knees pop as I crumple down onto the wet asphalt, the dead orange light from the street trailing over our forms. For a long while I sit there and sob, cry until I feel my lungs turn into ice and my stomach twist into stone.
His hand is resting on my shoulder, solid and real, and I grab his fingers, clutching onto him, trying to hold on to my lifeline.
"What's wrong with me, Adrian?" My words are choked and my chin wobbles as I try not to burst out into a fresh wave of tears. The grimy puddles of water are staining my kneepads and soaking into my skin, and I want to run, away from the dead man in the alley, away from the darkness that clings like a spider to this city, away from this mask. Away from Adrian.
"Nothing, sweetness." He cups my face in his hands – carefully swipes a strand of blood-matted hair away from my eyes. His face looks carved in marble, and his eyes are so very sad. His thumb rubs under my jawline and my eyes shut tight, my lip trembling. "Nothing."
I sleep in his arms that night. Even though we're both naked and left open, nothing happens between us. Scars are left raw and ragged in the moonlight, purpling bruises tender to the touch. He hugs me closer and I press my face into the crook where his neck meets shoulder, trying to tuck myself – tuck my whole being into the warmth and safety he offers so unguardedly. Trying to cover me with his tenderness.
It is enough.
If I was King of the World,
You'd be my girl,
You wouldn't have to shed one single tear -
(unless you wanted to)
'Cause yeah, I know what it's like.
-Weezer, King of the World
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