note: your kind words. idkidkidk. THANK YOU SO MUCH. hugs and cookies to you all. and i should really say that my "writing style" isn't for everyone so if you wanna flounce, go right on ahead, i won't be offended. and this is where "my" fight club differs from palahniuk's. idkidkidkidk i hope that this chapter answers at least some of your questions.
disclaimer: i dun own twilight.
Park bathroom. That's where I am.
And I must be dreaming because I can't feel my body and there's a smoky film over my eyes.
I see myself in the mirror before me.
Dark. Brooding. Eyebrows furrowed and I can't see my eyes. My face is clear of any dirt or resentment. I look like me—or how me is supposed to look.
Or... I don't know.
I don't know how I'm supposed to look.
There's a meadow in the mirror. The sun casts its rays on heavy-headed flowers and damp grass. Drops of water hang off the blades and I don't know why I can see this meadow so clearly when I can also see clean me and the dirty stalls reflected in it so faintly.
I am dreaming. I know it.
She's in the mirror, in the meadow, twirling about with the ends of her long white dress in her hands. A smile graces her tiny face. Her hair, dainty and scruffy, hangs over her eyes. She's the color of cookie dough with chocolate chips for freckles sprinkled over her cheeks and shoulders.
She's barefoot. Clean. Carefree.
Then she looks at me with her blue Skittle eyes and stands still.
Her hands hold on tightly to the white material, clouds in her hands, and she's shifting from left to right like kids do when they need to go to the bathroom.
"It's my fault," she says.
Her teeth and lips are wet with red and life and she laughs.
Blood trickles out of the side of her mouth and she laughs.
It was always her fault.
Awake.
I'm sitting up on the park bench I slept on. What woke me up wasn't a silly recurring dream. It was a pounding in my head, small hammers banging on my mind.
My lungs, they're shriveled up. I can't get enough air into them.
I need sleep. My arms, my legs, my face, my mind, my body beg for a good night's rest.
But no.
I say, "No."
It's morning and I have things to do.
Last week, it was a bar basement.
Today, it's an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town.
Today is next week and my left hand is still swollen.
Bruises reign over my palm; a mosaic piece consisting of light, romantic greens and deep, warring purples.
Delicate.
Intense.
My face isn't any better.
A gash two inches below my right eye reopens and bleeds every few hours. The skin around the opening feels sore and itchy and I want to rub at it, but I can't. Chicken scratches mar my left cheek from having it dragged across the floor. My left eyelid won't open all the way. I look half asleep.
My face is stained with blood, dirt, and grime. And no matter how hard I scrub at it or how much soap I use, the stains remain.
And there is ruin caressing my ears.
Yelling and screaming and spit and arms and legs flying through the air.
I'm standing on the outskirts of the circle in the middle of the room. Hands in my pocket and swiveling my neck from side to side—crack, crack.
This place is darker than most places we've been in. Bigger, too.
It helps.
With your vision impaired, you've got to be more wary. This dark, it sucks you in and doesn't let you go until you force it to let you go.
I hear bodies colliding, faces smothered into the ground, the pounding of chests, the clapping of hands, mutterings of praise. Murmurs and groans followed by cheers and laughter. The language of the hurt and the language of the amused.
There are giggles coming from a couple of girls hanging off guys who come here looking for glory. Guys huge and muscled and conceited.
Whether they'll find glory here, I don't know.
Some men flit their way through the crowd waving papers in the air, taking bets. Other men scout the strongest of the bastards fighting their monsters for all to see for their own uses. Greed and vanity and desire run rampant. In this dark, everyone's true colors show.
"…again. We're leaving," someone says.
And the voice is familiar.
I turn to see the girl with frizzy hair, up in a ponytail today, pulling on the arm of that guy from last week.
Jacob, I think.
They're ten feet away from me and I wonder how I didn't notice them. He stands next to her, his eyes trained on the eye of the storm, the center of the circle. His face is grave and serious. I know what he sees because it's what I see.
He shakes her off him and proceeds to bend over and take off his shoes.
No shoes, no shirts.
The girl, she backs away from him. She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at his back, her head held high. She's small next to him, and again I am reminded of a kitten, only this time she's fuming.
She glares and glares and glares and I don't know why I'm so interested in her indignation.
My eyes must have been on her for too long because next thing I know, it's her glaring eyes I'm staring into.
It's dark but they are right there and they are all I see.
Her face softens into a small grimace and her eyes dart to the floor and then back to me.
Flying arms and legs, hate and anger, and this girl is walking over to me.
She's walking over to me and she's standing in front of me and she says, "You."
Like she knows me, but she doesn't.
She doesn't.