she barely catches his movements from where
she’s standing, too far away to be close enough
to understand. she can feel it, though – the wei-
ght that’s settled around her. the weight that’s p-
ressed into every crevice, every nook and cra-
nny that exists in this new home they’ve made
for themselves.
most people don’t understand it. she doesn’t ex-
pect them to. she still has trouble understanding
the nuances that brought her here, that put her
in such a place where she’s living, breathing,
eating, sleeping, loving with two other people.
two people who love her back, who see the go-
od in her beyond the bad that stained her skin
so many years ago.
( it was only five months. )
still, she fidgets, a little uncomfortable under
his stare as her lips roll together. his words
make sense – somewhat – in terms of what
happened. she knows it wasn’t truly hannah,
though her mind still can’t wrap around the
fact that out of everyone, out of all eight of
them, she was attacked in ways that were
brutal, humiliating, and deprecating. she w-
ants to think it was on purpose – revenge
for what she did no more than a year earlier
– but maybe it’s just something that makes
the nightmares easier to swallow. somethi-
ng that she can lean on instead of facing the
fact that her friend – someone she knew –
turned into a monster. gnarled teeth, stretc-
hed skin, long limbed monster.
a chill runs down her back. her shoulders sha-
ke, a lame attempt to shrug it off, before her
head ducks.
❛ — i know, ❜ she insists, voice still quiet.
she’s guilty of hiding, of stowing away in the b-
athroom for too long fiddling with make-ups
and creams and anything the internet told her
was a quick fix to what’s happened to her body.
( part of her knows she can never go back to t-
he way things were, but her pride is too stubb-
orn to let it happen. )
her hands flatten against the counter top, eyes clo-
sed as she inhales slowly. ❛ i’m not scared of you, ❜
she says first, wanting to make herself clear. ❛ i
– you didn’t.. hurt me. you wouldn’t hurt me. ❜ her
lips curl into a smile, then, warmth filling her chest
as she turns, leans against the sink as her arms
curl around her center.
❛ it’s just… hard. ❜ she steels herself, digs her
nails into her arms as she wills for her body to grow
a layer of steel. ❛ i was beautiful. my body was my
weapon. everything i had came from what i looked
like. ❜ teeth bite into her cheek, willing her eyes to
stop glassing over. ❛ and now, i’m… i can’t be that
girl, anymore. and it’s, ❜ a beat, a sigh, ❛ hard. ❜
there were some things, effects that lingered on him that
they wouldn't really be able to understand or get rid of.
when her body shakes, he knows it. sees it. practically feels
it like a spider and a web. on some occasions he sees
little red lights ---- a trick to his vision. a lingering effect
from a time when he was truly a monster.
he knows what its like, trying to hide what happened.
they have boxes of little things to help them lie to
themselves and others. josh has his medical masks. she
has her foundations and powders and everything else.
josh had told her everything about movie-effect
make-up that he knew and yet there were days, like
today, where it didn't feel like enough.
nothing he ever did would be enough.
both of them had experienced losing what they were
so proud of ---- what they used as weapons. jess had
lost the perfection of her body. josh had lost the
clearness of his mind. there was a pill bottle in every
room, each one with a different label. they were all
on something for anxiety or depression or to help
them sleep so heavily nightmarish images of hannah
and the others couldn't find them but josh's bottles
could almost take over the place at times. he knew
them all, now. knew which ones he had to take daily.
which ones he could avoid when he was feeling
alright. which ones he absolutely needed to take if
he wasn't. there were bad days; days when his teeth
hurt and throbbed. days where his voice wouldn't
level. days where he saw more red than usual, where
nothing he ate seemed to help the pain in his
stomach. he usually tried to sleep through those days.
to take something that made him so sluggish and
tired that there wasn't much else that he could do.
she trusts him. isn't scared of him. but he is.
joshua washington was scared of what he was, what
he'd turned into, and what he feared he could turn
into again if he so much as thought about it too long.
the truth seems to claw at her the way hannah did.
josh watches as he folds in on herself, tries to hold
herself up because the rest of the world won't. she's a
beautiful thing, even broken ---- but he knows that
saying as much won't make the scars or her insecurity
go away. the words are kept to himself, for now. words
were strange things, he knew. a person could ramble on
to him for hours about how he was the same person,
about how things were okay but not one of them would
sink in if he wasn't willing. he knows her body language,
knows that she's trying to stay stitched together but
the mind was tricky. words were tricky. what they had
was tricky.
there was a time when he would have joked. would have
told her she was gorgeous no matter what she looked like.
maybe even a time where he wouldn't have felt his own
eyes burn and water. he would have laughed, done
something to make her smile. said something. anything.
but now, he's something different.
laundry is left to be forgotten and he lazily moves into
her space, head ducked so that he can press their
foreheads together quietly. he didn’t think she should
hide them anymore ... but she wasn’t ready. that was
okay. he would be there if she ever changed her mind.
blakekathryn
dailybridgerton
andulkaphoto
yousharknotpass
ellievsbear
prguitarman
theartofmadeline
janainaart
