It is the nights that she truly cannot stand. When the sunlight streams in, piercing, on her face, heats her blood and makes her sweat, she knows she is alive. But when the moon pours in and the silence drowns her, and all she can hear in the slow, obstinate beat of her tired little heart, that is when the lines blur and she cannot bear it. At night, she cries freely.
She mostly thinks of him.
Curious little phrases echo in her head. Whipped dolphin fat. Your eyes won't shut up. Must be in the McGenome. She remembers them all, smiles and aches for him. Thinks of the shared sheets and the electric pulse of skin on skin. Moans. At night, when she sleeps, she dreams of making love to him, burnt out and fading as she is. Their movements are angry and desperate. A compulsion, an urge. Inevitable. His smile reminded her of butter and sugar, stolen from the kitchens when she was young. She longed to taste him. To whisper things into his ear that would make her blush. She dreamed of waking up next to him, in the sweet and golden dawn of a new day. Sleepy cotton sheets and sleepy happy eyes.
And then morning comes, and the sun burns, curls the skin from her bones in beautiful crisp whispers. His boot invades, touching her everywhere as his words are repeated and her silence deafens them both. One time, he stubs out a cigarette on the skin of her stomach. She sobs, the dry convulsion of her body startling even her. She is worn and broken on the floor. He looks at her and remembers what she used to be. And then he kicks her once more, a blow to the abdomen, and leaves her to the night.
He wakes to the sense of an imminent and inevitable fall each morning. Lands in his mattress and sweaty, crumpled sheets. The alarm blares solid and smiling, hateful in his face. Another day with the empty desk and a stale and hanging silence. And then home to the soothing membrane of an alcoholic stupor. It hushes him and makes him numb and loose inside his skin. He thinks of her. Every time he does not say her name, another memory flashes past. The first time she drove the van. The time she whispered behind him, close and intimate in his ear. The time he watched, through the window in the door, as she played air guitar in the empty bullpen. He had loved her more than anything then. He had wanted to go in and take her hand and take her home and take her. She swallowed his lust with his whiskey and slept in his unmade bed.
A white blade slices through the space above her. There is no transition between air and flesh. The pain does not increase or diminish. His patience is wearing thin. Her lungs, tiny battered bellows, now strain for every breath. He sees the flicking end in sight, in the glazed and empty stare of her dark, dark eyes, the listlessness of her movements, awkward and heavy as though moving through treacle. Syrup. He remembers what her skin tasted like on that hot and imperfect night in July. He hates her now, blinding and true. Proud. Rips her apart, grunting and heaving. Leaves her naked and bleeding on the concrete floor.
The next day, he is back. A serrated blade. He grabs her hair, pulls it back so her neck, smooth and unscarred, is exposed, raw in the sunlight. She closes her eyes and mouths silent words into her fractured and ravenous heart. He presses it to her skin, feels the flesh break, watches a single line of blood trace the ghost of a fingerprint down her neck, across her collarbone and, gaining momentum, dances its way across the curve of her breast. He pulls the blade away. Hacks at her hair until she is shorn and weeping. She looks like a child, a lost and mournful infant with a dead and baleful gaze. And then he forces her body to the floor and makes love to her. He kisses her scratches and cuts and grazes, the burns and bruises and broken bones and silver scars. And then he leaves her in a pool of herself.
I know this, again, is pretty depressing, but I'm in the mood for some self-indulgent Tiva angst. And also, I know it's very short, but I'm actually supposed to be revising for my History AS on Monday, sorry :) Things will pick up soon, though, folks, and, like always, I really appreciate reviews. I'll hopefully update Tuesday. Thank you to everyone who reviewed so far!