Note: I will be taking song requests for chapters. You can give me the song title and artist in a review. I will only be using older songs, nothing modern. Please keep in mind that if they do not fit into the plot line they will not be used but I will try my best to make them work. And it is likley this will help me update quicker!
Song: Wildflowers by Tom Petty
Like a Rolling Stone
Chapter Three: Wildflowers
You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
Sail away, kill off the hours
You belong somewhere you feel free
The car looks as though it is a boat floating steadily against the heat waves of summer. But it sits still, unmoving, and stagnant as the air that corroded its metal skeleton, more of a sea monster with green painted scales tearing through the rusty blood than an object to escape upon. Between the gaping, slathering, grease sodden jowls it holds a man, his legs bowlegged and bent. The boy seems relaxed within these depths, a fate-less child.
Ruby sidesteps the beast, hair sticking to the back of her neck in the slickness of her heated skin, and steps into the station instead. The mart is average in size, enough to fit a small group comfortably and a few shelves full of cloying snacks packaged in clear plastic and the dust they collect without the same hesitation as those whom chew on their contents beneath the fluorescent lighting. Her entrance comes with a sudden blast of cool air, the North wind come to sweep away all her frailty and ceaseless bearings, quiet things that she must often hush lest another hear them. But such burdensome creatures never seem to silence, not for long, not even in the syrupy heat or the lustrating air sent down by the tempest of the North. Nevertheless, she allows the wind to carry her like a bird with wings far too damaged to flutter, skimming upon the air of an empty world as the chimera tickles her ruffled feathers with the briery tips of its nails.
To simply exist in this world is a tiring thing, contemptible nuances of life vitiating the very thing that which they are. The boy behind the counter with the recklessly caring eyes does not seem to experience such a burden, but rather gains moxie by the very act of being; like when flowers grow without anyone being there to water them, adamant and daring green stems forcing through the gritty soil. Fearless things like them spend their whole lives fighting.
"Sodapop Curtis," Ruby's voice is an invitation to dance and each of their eyes do; two different shades of brown, the miry lake reflecting stars.
Soda, like the month of August, is fevered, heat that moistens the skin of others, always a beginning and an end all at the same time, cool summer nights and cool summer dreams, scorched rubber on pavement, drag races, and whisky sipped over whisky eyes. Summer is it's own single entity, a trinity of months that hangs in the air, the passage of time slow and unnoticeable. Everything changes in the summer but when the last fervor slickened seconds slip away everything settles again.
In the heat of two summers Ruby sweats.
"Hey Ruby," Soda smiles, white teeth and white soul, "Steve's in the back." He turns his thumb up, a simple gesture towards the garage, a room of metal and concrete that retains the absent coolness of this solstice.
Ruby nods, a low dip of her chin and a pair of roving eyes; they catch the mist of a dawning rain through the blurred window hissing as its algid droplets cascade upon the hot black paving of the parking lot; their whispers curse, a single invitation in the mind of a girl that furls with the same mystifying air they draw upward from the path. In the DX station the air grows stagnant, a veil of thick air between glass and a growing storm. The radio murmurs, a steadying hum above coarse thoughts. Ruby recognizes the song, but it isn't the Rolling Stones.
"Nah," she shakes her head, brown and gold and missing thoughts, words not said; they make for incomplete ideas, spontaneity. "I just want to dance."
The handsome boy with the white teeth and the white soul raises his brow, a curvature to frame the thick brown of his irises. He thrives upon spontaneity, a sudden impulse, a thudding desire that beats with his heart. Should the clock tick faster his movements will too. It is because of this that he turns the music higher, the volume dragging their spirits with it. Everything hangs in the air, above their heads, light, and halted only by the brevity of their thoughts.
Run away, find you a lover
Go away somewhere all bright and new
I have seen no other
Who compares with you
Ruby laughs, music to mix with the sound of the rain and the resonance of the stereo. The door creaks on its hinges, the glass fogging to outline the shape of her hands as heat and raw poise mix upon the pane. The world comes clearer, now, the sound of rain a single song, poetic and pure, each droplet shattering as it hits the ground, spreading life clearer across the soiled earth. She slips off her shoes, the harsh rocks dripping with fluid air so that they seem smooth against her soles, and uses them to prop the door open, radio chamber spilling into the open day.
They move like watercolors in the rain. All the edges are blurred, and nothing is defined, a hazy outline between themselves and the sky, they blend there, pieces of the wind. And the rain beads upon her skin, bird bones, each droplet a golden jewel reflecting the sun. He thinks she looks beautiful like that, all doused in liquid light. Their silhouettes move desperately, vibrations from deep within their marrow; such need is seen only from within. Children from this side of town are too good at playing poker, a full deck of cards clutched close to the chest, and Ruby likes to gamble.
Their laughter is all encompassing, a northward arrow pointing them in a direction they'll ignore as the storm rises and rain falls past their parted lips. They dance though it takes them nowhere and let their bodies crash through time.
Time. Neither is sure how much of it they have.
But they do know this: their hearts tick as these clocks, absentminded minutes passing away in their carelessness; when they fall they'll ignore the bruises, pain that touches their hearts, no matter how fleeting; they do not want to grow to be bitter people, toxic words seeping from their lips, pain staining their tongues. The others call them oblivious. Maybe they are. But is that so bad?
Or maybe they have more courage then the others, broken bones and purple skin. Maybe they're better off.
And maybe they'll never know the answers that they're looking for to the questions they do not know how to ask. Fragile things with angel wings poised upon the wind.
You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
You belong with your love on your arm
You belong somewhere you feel free
The sun separates from the clouds and they are broken into a kaleidoscope of colors. A car thunders by like a boat to drift upon the puddles, creating its own waves. There is a certain freedom that catches on the wind.
Steve leans out the door of the garage, one hand gripping the side and another shielding his eyes from the fierce light of the sun as the rain courses in rivulets upon the tin roof, each droplet like a bullet, their din chattering teeth. "What the hell are you guys doing?" The way he holds his hand above his eyes casts shadows upon his face, mist catching in his hair when the dewdrops winnow.
"We were just dancin', Stevie." Ruby knocks her heels together, a pool of summer rain rippling in her wake. She lifts her arms up, wet hair clinging to her cheeks, bunched in her hands. Her hips swing, the skirts of her dress cleaving against her thighs like carnal wanderings of the night.
Steve shakes his head; a sort of exasperation and fondness falls across is face with the shadows, the type of look that comes only with passing years, time spent close with someone always so distant. The mind creates its own barriers. "Put your shoes on before you step on some glass," he says, and the order sounds harsh as the rest of him but Ruby knows better.
They all do.
Run away, go find a lover
Run away, let your heart be your guide
You deserve the deepest of cover
You belong in that home by and by
Steve tells Ruby to go home but it is not often she listens to him; her wills are more of the wind, dragging her away, and ever changing. They pull her across the thick tar of Tulsa, stained with new rain, and into a booth wrapped in red vinyl, the deep-seated cracks clawing at the backs of her knees like those thoughts that tear away at her mind.
Jane sits across from her—"my shift just ended," she had said—a girl with eyes that have aged more than the rest of her body, slim waist and a million worries. Her hair is white as her fingertips where she wrings her hands together, worn and raw hands that are no longer able to rest. Uncertainties settle deep within her chest and heavy across her lips, the same two features that gather the mass amount of her tips. She's like a ghost, a pretty façade, and all too easy to shatter.
"Were you at that party last night?" Ruby asks. It's an absentminded question by an absentminded girl, each word soft and lilting as the sound of the rain upon the window.
"Mmhmm," Jane hums, the smoke of her cigarette blending with the thin outline of her body. Ruby sucks this smoke in too, her lips parting to catch it on her tongue and burn her lungs with. "I sure was. But I don't expect you to notice anything when you're around Jack." Her pink lips curl, the shape of the smoke twisting with them. They seem to spell words in a slick cursive hand neither can nor care to read.
Ruby shakes her head, her damp hair clinging to the column of her neck, water spilling over the red mark that had bloomed above her chest, a memory of pink blood. "Oh, you know how he is," she smiles, sweet and gentle, a wallowing flower freshly watered in summer rain.
"I know how all the boys are," Jane grins, stubbing out her cigarette, all her actions gentle as herself, a slight curve of the lips that does not show her teeth, and a light smothering of ashes, as someone wolf whistles behind her, sharp across the ears of two girls with petal soft skin.
Kathy leans over the table of their booth, palms flat against the dank gray counter, her smile just as razor-sharp and wolfish as the sound she had passed between her lips. "Don't we know it, girl."
"Kathy," Jane simpers, "I sure know you weren't at that party." People like Kathy and Jane are not meant to be close but the world forces them together, such contrasting images in a place that only allows a singular hate.
"Hell no," Kathy tosses her head back, her laugh bitter and dramatic, tresses spiraling like the rest of them in this world, blonde hair the work of the twisting hands of nature rather than her own as Jane's is, a flare that belongs only to her in a neighborhood where everything is taken from you. Kathy is more than a firecracker; she's the entire show. "I'd never go to a party on River King's territory, not with my brother always bein' there."
"Well, shit, Kathy," Ruby looks up at her past eyelashes that are dark with the raindrops still collected upon them, fake tears in a world that's only real when no one can see it, but still beautiful in a million different ways. "I'd say I see more of your brother than you do."
Kathy points a finger at her, bright pink nails to match the hue of her shirt, and outlines the shape of Ruby's hickey, a cherry blossom to be plucked and pried. "We all know just how much of my brother you see."
Ruby titters, her nose creasing and her eyes pressing closed with the heaviness of her relief, a few drops of past rain roll across her cheeks and stain them with the black soot of her mascara.
Jane twists a napkin in her hand, leaning across the table to wipe away the streams of black tears and hot coal as she speaks, "I'd love to know just how much of a man he really is," she puckers her lips, "why… you don't have the exact measure in inches do you?" Her lashes flutter with her fleeting humor, a dancing object that cannot be captured.
"Oh, hell no," Kathy drops her finger, her own face crumpling as the other two laugh. Ruby leans over to whisper secret words within Jane's ear. Such secrets one will never know, for each girl knows how to keep them, lips that only part for bitter kisses. Jane's eyes go wide, her thumb swiping under Ruby's eyes to drag away the last of her blackness and fears, before leaning back in the seat of her booth. Kathy shakes her head at them, "Are we gettin' outta' here or what?" She speaks from the corner of her mouth, lips in a heavy pout that only spreads desire.
"Ooh," Jane stands, shaking out the skirts of her uniform, "What if we have a girl's night?" Her shoulders curve in their own question, her eyes dawning with all the hope she can draw from the pair to replace her own that escapes from working hands, that fissures through broken skin, and falls away in sweat.
Ruby nods, mind drawing on the memory of her father: an absent one. "Yeah, my dad ain't home we can all go over to my place."
You belong among the wildflowers
You belong somewhere close to me
Far away from your trouble and worry
You belong somewhere you feel free