regression was her coping mechanism of choice, no matter the many attempts made by foster parents, guidance counselors, social workers to amend — or, was it even that if she never grew out of the habit ? always the same child…4…7…8…11…and-so-on-year-old grasping for hands that only offered harm, never learning, desperate. survival meant lying to yourself at times. she avoided her apartment, her home on purpose to save on electricity, gas, opting for whatever was open whenever and only retreating to sleep. crossroads cut hours beneath the threshold of benefits. dealing had provided enough, kept her independent which was always the goal — to not rely on harmful hands — but it was always tenuous — she knew that despite the curtain that lay overhead. still, rowan found herself angry with him, shifting the blame onto mercy, but it wasn’t exactly that. she owed him, she gathered, piecing together the clues: a dead body, a missing man, the kiss. it wasn’t his fault. rowan grasped onto flimsy reasons to be angry, to not admit the truth. one truth: the desperate plea of her heart during nighttime shifts at the counter, aligning barcodes, eyeing the gaggle of college students — logoed sweatshirts, words that sounded foreign to her in their mouths. they came to fill up on snacks as they moved on ‘cause they had places to move onto. she was stuck there. mercy hadn’t been; he moved on. when robbie — an entitled graduate student, already greying, on his second degree — asked her out for the third time, she said yes. he didn’t care to know her — they never did; just wanted the satisfaction of a trophy on his arm, but she got free meals, a room, somewhere to be — packing peanuts to fill in the spaces. robbie liked that he was smarter than her. that he could talk and goad as she just sat there pretty as he so often dropped, empty. rowan thought about cricket during those times; the warm brown of his eyes, his grounding voice. she never reached out, not wanting to encroach as stupid as she knew it was. instead, she was at scuba with robbie and robbie’s friends, a scorching heat along her lower back where his hand had lay before she pulled away to ‘grab a drink’. it felt like a trick of her mind, then, when she saw him, attention caught by the crash, forced out of her self-induced haze. she wasn’t that drunk. hurried steps were taken across the room, out the door, alarmed that he’d disappear if he was out of sight for more than a second. but, mercy was standing outside — still there — cigarette in hand, lighting the way toward him. rowan stopped a step away, facing him, searching for a crack beyond the hardened exterior, but she knew him well enough to know that he’d only show the most superficial of scars. “ where’d you go ? ” she finally spoke, a question to his non-question, but it wasn’t accusatory — a second truth: she felt 11 again, laden with genuine curiosity and longing, happy that he was back, not angry that he’d left. closer now, her hand reached out to wrap around his wrist, gentle.
By nature, Mercy wasn’t one to revert into himself, shrink away when stress loomed like a hefty rain cloud threatening to ruin an otherwise perfect day. He was volatile, the human epitome of biting the hand that feeds you, laughing with blood on his teeth. There weren’t many bridges he hadn’t burned, and Mercy took pride in the fact that he had no one to blame but himself. But all his sharp edges seemed to momentarily chip, dulling amongst themselves, unsure of how to proceed when Rowan touched him so carefully, spoke so gently. No one really treated him like someone who had a ‘FRAGILE’ sticker across their torso, usually too worried that he’ll beat them to the punch and crack himself open just to spill the worst parts of Mercy all over them. Cigarette frozen in the corner of his mouth, he had to readjust to the sight of Rowan clutching onto him, as if he’d sidestepped and wound up with his hand in a bear trap - he had no idea what to do with affections for the sake of affection. He didn’t mean anything by it when his nose automatically wrinkled, the closest he’d ever get to wearing bewilderment on his sleeve, “I told you,” Which wasn’t particularly fair. Or even, for that matter, true. Mercy’s explanation had been half-baked when he’d told Rowan nothing more than ‘he had something to take care of’, punctuating his reasoning with a kiss in the hopes of a distraction, with the sickening realization that he wanted to, with the notion he’d probably never get to do it ever again. He still wasn’t delusional enough to assume it would now that they were face to face, but he’d also been under the assumption he’d never see her again in general, so this was progress in his books. Or a punishment - his wrist was still itching to both push away and accept the lingering touch, “Doesn’t matter - you don’t have to worry about it anymore, ‘kay?” There was about a thousand words that creeped through the ones he actually said, giving Rowan proper eye contact for the first time since she’d stepped outside. It wasn’t that Mercy was purposely trying to avoid her gaze, he’d never actually backed down from anything in his life, but she was making him crack open in a completely different way than what he was used to. It was frustrating him, the way he wanted to hate it but the ease in his chest impossible to ignore. Mercy hadn’t even realized he’d had this weight pressed against him, a shoe pushing down until there was a crunch, until now. He almost missed it. The finality of his sentence wasn’t pressing but goading - The less you know the better. After a few seconds he reached forward, knuckle of his index finger brushing against Rowan’s chin in a helplessly desperate and admittedly fond gesture, trying to coax something out of her that he was more familiar with, more comfortable - the harder side of her, the one that bit back at him when he deserved it, “Jesus, don’t look at me like that. I feel like I ran over your fuckin’ puppy or something,” Hand scrubbing over his face, Mercy eventually twisted the wrist she held onto, slipping his fingers through hers like he’d meant to do it the moment she was grasping him. All he could offer her was a reassuring squeeze, something that showed that he’d missed her too, thought about her as well, but it was all he could cough up before the pressure on his core was back - a warning, something eerily close to his dad’s voice sneering at him for petty indulgences. It probably would’ve been easier to just say his intentions, but even still, Mercy had too much pride for that, “Let’s go,” he said, hand sliding out of hers. It wasn’t a question, but if she’d said she wanted to stay Mercy momentarily pretended he wouldn’t agree to stay, too, “I have something I want to show you.”
