EVENT: BONFIRE & LANTERN VIGIL.
LOCATION: Tortue Cove.
OPEN TO: @elisabethstarters·
Community. Something Emma never understood, mainly because she never experienced it growing up. As the people around her grow close, expressing condolences from the deepest caverns of their warm, pumping hearts, Emma feels sick. Irritable, even. It also earns an itch to spread across her skin, though it feels mostly internal. An itch she can’t quite scratch. Though she’s been to enough of these, an island tradition, yet she’ll never grow used to the way everyone seems so…close. What was closeness when all you have to give is a cruel gaze and a cold shoulder? Emma wasn’t sure, though she attempts to find a balance despite the nervousness that makes a home inside her stomach.
Brown eyes were glued to the fire before her, Emma finally decided to take a seat closer to the flames. Was it selfish that all she could ponder about was her reputation? Yes. Was she aware of this? Yes and no. Emma’s guilt came in waves, especially as she heard the people around her hope and pray for the return of the missing men. Especially when she sees another lantern decorate the sky, illuminating the clouds that grow dark as the day grows long.
Soon enough, there’s a figure at her side, earning the itch ailing Emma to increase. There’s a deep inhale taken in, a look of annoyance gracing her stern and gorgeous expression. Oh, Emma, at least you have your looks and maybe your siblings. “Are you gonna just stand there or are you gonna sit?” Emma asks, attempting to blanket a sense of nonchalant to her tone. But, really, she just sounds plain. She clears her throat then, straightening her already pristine posture. “How um, how’s your evening so far?” Good enough.
Alice didn't think she would ever get used to the feeling of seeing into the past. This particular picture that painted the afternoon in hues of orange had been different back then — or perhaps she had been different, cynical, young. It bothered, before she left, how people could play the part of good neighbour and still be so overwhelmingly selfish as the people she saw on weekends at the country club. She found out, then, that real family was beyond those walls. Beyond the tennis courts and ivy covered walls. The main reason her mother fought so much to have her own life was because real love started with very simple things.
It was extending a hand when someone else needed, it was watching the sun set and the smell of the ocean. It was letting the rain pour on you when your best friend forgot their raincoat, because real islanders sure as hell don't use umbrellas. That's what she hadn't understood back then — that all you could ever want in life was perhaps in the simplest of things.
Emma, too, was a vision from the past. She was hardly different from what she had been, however, like even the air around her behaved the same way: infatuated but cautious, careful not to get too close. Alice had always liked her, despite the warning signs. She was truly an interesting character and Alice had always been inspired by interest. In Alice's eyes, Emma seemed like someone you could write an entire discography about. Dreadful, really, as art often was.
"I thought it was you," she replied, amused but absolutely not surprise to find out she still had the bite that followed the bark. "It's been a long time, Emma." Alice smiled, and she too had a mouth made for killing, even as the kindest of words would spill whenever it was open. Kindness was a choice.
