Flaky was unfocused, Lammy droning on about a football game only days away, and staring into oblivion.
Physical pain. It was either a series of sharp pricks, or numbing feelings that immobilized one's body. Agonizing in some forms, excruciating in others, but tormenting in any. Mental pain. Harrowing experiences could cause this type of affliction. Far more burdensome than painful, but like a throe that could loom over your whole being and cause more anguish than was initiated. Emotional pain. The kind that ravaged your insides and threw your brain into chaos. Its feel was one of the most realistic, but emotions were novelties that induced no damage to you.
She had felt these types of pain. Physical in her daily life, mental in the fears that tagged her everywhere and nowhere, and emotional in the occurrences she had bared through. Actually, she shouldn't have thought occurrences, as it was one occurrence which plagued her. There weren't various other occurrences where she had been shot with the bullet that brought this heartbreak. It was just that—heartbreak. Physical, mental, emotional it was all jumbled in her confused mind.
A breaking heart wasn't literal, it was figurative. A person's heart couldn't snap in pieces and float away with the wind, or be thrown into a trash can, despite how it possible it felt. Love—and emotions in general—is not located and found in a heart, it's but an organ that keeps a body functioning. So why did people insist that a heart could shatter? Why did she feel that the fist-sized lump in her chest had stopped beating, broken in two and fallen apart..?
This sensation was unlike others. An icy blade that had penetrated her stomach and frozen over her body slowly. She would question Petunia or Giggles about this, but they were always so happy. If they had felt this, whatever it was, how could they always smile? Smile and go on without the guilt, acting happy while their body was in a war with itself. They wouldn't be the peppy, energetic girls they were.
To crawl into a hole, a dark hole, and curl into a wallowing ball. It was what she wanted more than anything. She had been opposed to leaving her house after the thing, but Lammy could be convincing.
Sulking for three days won't help you, you need to face the world! Lammy encouraged, bothered by her friend's overwrought being. You're looking pale! She always looked pale, why was it any different now. And if she had to give a candid admittance, she wasn't enthusiastic about having Lammy's company. Or anyone's company, really. To put it bluntly, she would rather be encased in her room, sheathed in blankets and watching soap operas.
Well, the latter didn't sound much like her, but the former sounded fine. Maybe if she was cloaked by quilts her guilt would pass over, figuring she had been effaced from the earth. It would plague her no longer, and she could go on with her life. For the pain to be eased and her eyes to regain their hydrated feel. Tears could steal quite a bit of water from a person.
In the past three days, she estimated she had lost five pounds. All water. And for one as lightweight as she, that wasn't healthy. Even for others with a bulkier build, it couldn't do well on their bodies to cry as she did.
The town crybaby. That was Flaky, but she had been trying to prove otherwise, by being courageous. By looking Death in the face, by containing her terrified shrieks when a citizen was slaughtered, by trying not to take the event to heart. By trying to not remember the excruciating flecks his eyes contained. It was absolutely fair for her to shed a tear—or more. She had carried herself with dignity up until this point, earning the right to relieve her tear ducts.
But relieving herself of pent up wails had proved resultless. As though her body knew it wasn't the built up water that caused her such dejection, if that was possible. Could a body worry itself sick, like people sometimes said? Could a body sense when something was tormenting the mind? When the conflict is contained within the head of a person, running amuck and disarranging all filed away thoughts, is the flesh able to understand where the troubles are from?
"..to the game?" The segment of a question popped her thought bubbles. Flaky's eyes grew, awareness clearing her head of troubling thoughts and questions. Had Lammy been talking to her? Lammy stared on, distressed by the redhead's lack of attentiveness. She propped a hand on her hip. "Flaky?"
Question answered. She blushed, fingertips brushing her bangs aside. Unfocused, she hadn't thought she would be this unfocused. Then again, how could Lammy expect her to focus when the topic was so, mm, boring. "Hm?"
"I asked if you were going to make it? To the football game?"
"The game?" She could only pick up pieces of what Lammy was asking. Game, game, she searched her mind's filing cabinets for anything that dealt with games. "Um, y-yeah..I don't think so. I think I j-just want to stay home that day."
Lammy eyed her skeptically. "Flaky, I'm sorry. I don't have a faint clue as to what I'm apologizing for, but nonetheless I'm sorry."
Flaky strolled down the aisle between two shelves of chips and sodas, shrugging nonchalantly and appearing interested in a particular bag of cheese puffs. With an endearing look at Lammy, she scanned the ingredients. Lammy persisted. "So you're not going to tell me? I'm not a mind reader, Flaky. I won't know what's eating you unless you tell me."
In a moment, Lammy was by her side, combing her fingers through her hair, the crimson ringlets coiling themselves around her fingers, and overlooking her with trepidation. Unresponsive, Flaky merely kept her silence.
Lammy dissected her aloof behaviour slowly. She was stone still and evidently trying her hand at being a profound thinker.
"I think I have it," said Lammy monotonously, smoothing down Flaky's hair and going grim. Flaky turned to meet her friend's derisive smile, her bangs swinging down like a drape, her eyes being the windows. "You're thinking about Lifty, aren't you?"
"How can I not be?" Flaky flared, irate at the stupidity of the question. Then she blindly switched the cheese puffs bag for one different. "You make it seem like this speculated weeks ago. Or like this is of little importance and m-makes no impact to your life."
"I can't say it does impact me, seeing how I never was fond of that vermin."
Flaky sighed, annoyance flickering across her visage.
"But," Lammy clearly pronounced. "Your welfare does affect me. If you're distraught over this, well, I should be too." The violet-haired woman gently took the bag from Flaky's hands. They hadn't visited the store to shop, in all honesty. It was an attempt to pull Flaky from her funk, but it wasn't working like planned.
A frown carved into her skin. "You shouldn't be, considering you were one of the p-people who treated Lifty as nothing but a nuisance."
Lammy tensed. Her lips parted in astonishment at Flaky's candid coarseness. "Sorry for caring about you."
"You could care a little less."
The conversation dropped after that. Lammy didn't make another effort, and Flaky hardly regarded her if she did. The store was near empty (unsurprisingly. Its contents consisted of dusty old snack bags and knickknacks, also the clerk was dozing behind his magazine). It wasn't long before the violet-head took leave, offering to drive her friend home.
"This is gonna be a simple in-and-out. Get it? Don't make this complicated, dipshit."
Lifty slowed the van to a halt. A weary scowl marrying his otherwise smooth face, he used a nod to confirm. He might have stowed his skills away, and they were probably more than just rusty, but robbing was like riding a bike. Once you understood the basics, it became a lament talent—if you could call it that—that arose whenever called upon. He could still rob the entire town blind without breaking a sweat. Stealing was a second nature to him.
"Good. Now stay here, watch the car, and don't attract attention to yourself." Shifty unbuckled his seatbelt. He hopped down, alertness brightening his normally passive gaze, and shouldered a knapsack. "And if Lumpy shows up, I think I'll trust you to wing it."
Lifty dejectedly sat back. The smidgen of hope to relive that feeling of adrenaline after a robbery was crushed under Shifty's order. His brother might have trusted him to bewilder Lumpy, but he made it obvious anything associating with robberies was out of the question.
He wouldn't want his pathetic brother slip up.
Out of the two, Shifty was the more discrete crook; a status that he congratulated himself for. But of the two, Lifty had more of a brain. He was the twin who calculated any threats to their mission or lifes. Certainly that was enough for his twin to repent and put him back in the game.
Shifty wasn't trustful, however, and he was even less forgiving. Any traitorous, defiling act deserved some penitence. Even more so for Lifty, who knew this rule from their birth date.
Residing to prop his chin on a hand, Lifty scoured the dashboard. He couldn't say he preferred their dirtied van to Flaky's tidied car. While their floor was littered with clusters of paper and fast-food wrappers, hers was properly maintained and free of trash. Their seats had soda, or was it blood, stains; her seats had neither. Their van smelled strongly of sweat from manual labour; her car's scent carried the slightest bit of strawberry shampoo. And lastly, he had Shifty in this van; Flaky's car had her.
That was the vital difference.
He missed running his fingers through silky tresses, longed to wake up to a shocking red, yearned to hear her tinkly laugh. What he most desired, though, was none of the three. He desired to see the acceptance in her eyes as she smiled like..like he wasn't a criminal. She shared with him the smile she gave everyone.
Fuck, what had she done to him..
Why was he so weak to her figure? He couldn't actually be in lo..luv..loove..He couldn't actually be holding strong affections, could he? Wasn't liking-being happy and feeling weird inside enough? He was a cold hearted, obnoxious, uncaring, unfriendly thief.
Or at least, that's what he was before she entered his life.
Damn, Lifty shielded his eye. She tells me, warns me, to keep out of her life. She made it clear I'm not to be involved with her. Yet..she hasn't left my mind.
Her laugh, her lips, her voice.
She's like an addicting drug.
He removed his hand. This was so cliché, the bad boy falling for the good girl.
..I think I'm making myself sick.
Wandering through his thoughts, sorting through the regret, Lifty barely registered his brother fleeing the store. He flinched as the elder twin scrambled inside.
Shifty threw his empty sack into oblivion, wasting no air in saying: "Drive, drive, drive!"
"What? Why?" questioned Lifty suspiciously. "Was it Splendid?"
"Ask questions later, dumbass! I want you to fucking drive right now, listen to me!"
Lifty shifted the car into drive. "Before we go," he started, strained, "tell me why we're in a hurry."
"Does it matter?" Shifty urgently asked. "Just go already! Quit your fucking stalling and get us out of here!"
"Why?"
"Holy shit, dude, when did you become so noisy? Just because you had a freedom to speak at Flaky's doesn't mean you have one here." Shifty grasped the steering wheel, intent on illegally driving from the passenger's seat. "Let's. Leave. Now."
"I wanna know why—"
Chiming bells heralded the ensued tenseness. Shifty's incoherent curse was unheard over Lifty's sharp intake, as well as another, more ragged breath.
"Goddamn," Shifty acidly swore.
"Flaky?" Lifty hated the poorly disguised hope coating her name.
She was as he remembered, the face that wouldn't cease to plague his every thought. Discounting the glossy shine to her doe eyes and her disheveled sweater, she was the girl he adored and feared most. Flaky.
A microscopic lift of her brow was the received reaction. The only received reaction. A whoosh of tangled, curly locks and Flaky stalked off, Lammy in tow.
Lifty's faint smile fell with the dismissal. Throwing an arm over his seat, he sought the redhead. He found her. Settling in Lammy's car, her head down and chin on knees. "What?"
"I told you to fucking leave when we could. I was trying to protect you, asshat." Shifty pushed the rim of his fedora down, shadowing his nose up. "But you don't like listening, do you."
Dejection. Rejection. Melancholy. These were interesting emotions to be visited by. Lifty enclosed the steering wheel in a steel hold. He despondently pulled away, driving the opposite way of the miniature lavender car.
So this was the new game.
A game of unspoken words.
Only he was solitary in this game; Flaky could or could not be playing.
His bet was on the latter.