Spoilers: The background for this piece has something to do with a novel I was going to co-write with a friend many years ago. The main characters were Veronica, Lyla and Edward. There was a love triangle, a marriage for money, and an illicit pregnancy. You get the idea. :)
#6 - Mayhem
She feels his face between her hands. The skin of his cheeks is soft underneath downy hair. The contour of his jawline is one that she has committed to memory before now, and tonight she maps the curves with the tips of her fingers as though they could tell her the meaning of life.
This will be the last time she will see him. She can feel it in her chest, in her nostrils and underneath her tongue. The idea is budding there like a growth, quiet and undisturbed until now. He is silent, mostly. He mumbles occasionally, whispering her name as she holds his head in her lap. This is how she knows.
The room is swaying around them as though it is made of the shadows that they seem to be swimming in. She finds it hard to draw breath into herself, as though there are a pair of arms clasped tightly around her waist. She can see the rise and fall of her breast as she gazes at him through unfocused eyes. There are candles and they make his skin look like it is made of polished bronze. She cannot believe that she once thought him ugly; the strong brow that she thought a sign of low intelligence is now her favourite feature of his face. His dark eyes seem to shine with the candles; the depths are pools of secrets that she once knew. Not any longer.
“You won’t come back to me, will you.” It is not a question. He doesn’t answer other than to reach his fingers out and caress her chin with his nails. The lines of contact make her shiver with delighted sorrow. Her throat is closed.
“I’ll forget you. I will.” She doesn’t know whether this is a threat, or the truth. It could be the truth. She could mean it; she knows she could.
“You might.” His lips are curved like Cupid’s bow. They are unnaturally red. She wants to kiss them - and if any time is the time to do so it is now - and yet she can’t quite bring herself to do it. If she kisses him, it will be over. She will taste the honey balm he uses in the winter and smell the garlic peppermint on his breath and the world will end. It will collapse around them.
“I’ll try,” she says, her voice constrained by earnestness. “I don’t think I could go on knowing what I had lost.”
“Loss isn’t important,” he replies, his voice cool. He lifts his head and sits so he can look her in the eye. She doesn’t want to see into his face, but he will not let her go. She is frozen. “I mean it, V. Loss is just another way to look at gain; you’ll find something else in my place soon enough.”
His canines are sharp and white. His cheekbones are remarkably high.
“Those are just words,” she says, a burning sensation rising in her stomach. “Loss, gain - what do they mean, really? How can you think I should replace you so easily?”
He just shrugs.
The silence stretches for several minutes; her chest is heaving now, the breath coming in short, sharp bursts. She doesn’t know how to fight the rising pulse in her fingers, her head - she can’t hold it. It will escape.
“Does she know?”
“She doesn’t. She can’t.”
“No.” She shakes with the effort of the word, as if it is as thick as tar behind her teeth. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. Her teeth chatter. She wants to vomit.
“No, V. She can’t. If she ever knows, it will kill her. She - she isn’t strong. She isn’t like you.”
“That’s why you’re going.”
“Yes.”
Suddenly she is no longer on this bed, in this room. The attic is empty and she is somewhere else. Her eyes are closed so tightly she thinks she can see the darkness. Yet, when he moves she still feels it, when his fingers close around her wrist she knows that they are there - really there. She can fool her eyes, but not her skin, not her nose. She can smell him, feel him, know him.
And then she realises. She must be the one to leave.
“It’s okay,” she tells him. Her voice sounds stronger than she thought possible. There is a wiry intensity there that she never dreamed of possessing. She knows it is the right thing to do. “I’ll make it easy for you. You stay; I’ll leave.”
He draws a breath, realising the enormity of her decision. Leaving everything behind, everything, will be her gift to him; her final farewell.
“V...”
“I know.” She begins to gather herself, her limbs come to her body one by one until she is standing. She can feel the tightness in her chest coming in waves, but it is weaker now. She rests a hand on her stomach as though to steady herself, feeling the swell of movement there - movement of which he will never know. It would make it... impossible. Impossible for him to leave, to do what is right. This is right. She lets her hand fall.
“Will you...?”
She shakes her head, knowing what he is about to say. “I won’t breathe a word of this to anybody, Edward. You know it as well as I. I haven’t the words to even try to explain what has passed - between us. I couldn’t even dare myself to do it if somebody lit a burning pyre beneath me.” She holds her breath for a second, praying for her hands to remain strong as she reaches out to him. Just one more time.
He holds her fingers between his palms and then kisses her cool skin.
“One thing,” he says, his almond eyes shimmering with the candle light.
“Yes?”
“When you leave here, V, please - please - give them hell.”
Oh, she thinks, her fingers pressed discreetly just below her belly button; I will.
Words: 1,001
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