you can't choose what stays (and what fades away)
title: you can't choose what stays (and what fades away)
rating/word count: pg/876
summary: Why do you always have to be in love someone? - she stares at her reflection in the mirror, swallows the ashes in the back of her throat, and pulls together a smile
notes: I haven't written in so long. I miss it, soo much.
Sometimes she wonders why every story she ever reads is about love.
(she laughs like a child, eye lashes peering into the clouds, and smoke stuck to the roof of her mouth) She doesn't mean to fall in love with him but it happens and she can't help but miss him with every fiber of her being.
You stole my soul, she says throwing her head back and running her fingers through his hair.
(she read somewhere once that it's the touch that means love. She touches every inch of him until her fingertips catch on fire.)
what's your favorite part of me?- he runs his hands along her nose, her clavicle, her wrists, her hips. How could I pick just one? She smiles and he kisses her there too.
…
She makes a mistake. I don't love you and you mean nothing to me and I never want to see you again.
She doesn't cry and she doesn't think and she just lies to herself until the emptiness settles in her bones.
Don't say it, please.
I think I love you and I'm afraid and you could consume me and please please please don't leave me. - her soul whispers like a chorus rushing past.
(the truth blurs behind her tears; she lies lies lies until she accepts it as the truth)
…
Why do you always have to be in love someone? - she stares at her reflection in the mirror, swallows the ashes in the back of her throat, and pulls together a smile.
His fingers reach out to touch her flesh, but they retreat. She feels the misgivings of invisible patterns being engraved into her skin for hours after he's left her side.
…
It's a Thursday, and the sky turns blood orange and fire falls from the sky.
I don't want you anymore. I never wanted you.
She doesn't cry- because she is alone. She has always needed an audience to feel. Always needed the stage and the show, and this is who you are, the lights bright and hot, causing sweat to drip down her brow.
She blows smoke from her pretty perfect pink mouth and she doesn't cry and she doesn't feel.
(Outside the world catches fire)
…
Eventually she wonders if they're all used up.
(if she used him up or he used her up or if they both just became expendable and lost in all the mess that they became. What if all our love is used up?)
She takes the blame, despite the fact she'd like to shove it all on him in a neat snuff pile of ash, she's good at taking fault.
(it was me. it was me. it was me. -the mantra scraping against her teeth like caramel. )
She rubs her thumb along the counter and stares into her plate of food, cast her eyes away from him. She is starving. Not of food or drink or shelter or need.
She is starved of his love.
He tucks a strand of loose brown wave behind her ear, his breath hot and soft against her face.
(He says so much by saying nothing. His breath beating into her skin all the words he couldn't dare say aloud. I miss you, but I can't keep doing this. You were wrong about us, we're not forever. There is nothing left here, but ash.)
She inhales sharply, keeps her tears locked in her eyeballs and blinks trying to hold it together (hold them together) and reaches her fingers out to intertwine with his.
She feels his eye bare into her, daring her to look at him, but she doesn't turn her face, doesn't turn her eyes. The idea, the even thought that they could end right here, rightnow, with his pulse slammed into the inside of her wrist, her heart shattering in her chest, and him splitting her into two.
(it took two people to make her. A man and a woman who loved each other too much and too soon. They wrote their I love yous on paper napkins and the corners of water bills and post- it notes and built a house of love.
It got torn apart- by anger and not enough money and we just want different things. Her cries collapse the lovely pretty world they'd built. She had single handily broke them. Crushed their dreams and sent their home flying into a fistful of confetti)
His green eyes burn holes into her shoulder blade and back. When he gets up to leave, his stool spinning in his wake, she squeezes his hand tight-tight-tighter.
Her half moon-nails leaving scratches in his flesh as he pulls away. (she hopes they scab and scar- she wanted him to wear her, wanted him to always remember that she held onto him for dear life)
…
I'm sorry-he says eventually. She is sprawled out naked on her bed, his body pressed into hers and she thinks that this is what she's always wanted. She feels weak, feels the blood being drawn from her veins. She feels tied down to the bedpost, silk ties digging into her wrists.
There are ties that bond and bonds that tie. She breaks the invisible chains and doesn't kiss his lips.
fin.