LKHGLKHGH get your stupid smirk emoji outta here loser. This one is SO long and SO sappy and I think some plot points make it illegible but DING DING DING we have a kiss folks we have A KISS!!!
@punkranger also very nicely prompted me this one, so here goes, thank you both š«¶
20. (A kiss)... on a scar.
Implant offāfor focus. The silence is entire at last. The light wanes, and the world, for a minute or two, for a minute and a century, in this small shadow room, is pinpricked into the relief of her dark eyebrow. Under my fingersā work, you see, there is nothing else under my fingers but her speckled skin, as giving as cloth. The needle weaves, in and out, a careful dance, paced with my breathing.
In, and out. Sheāshe breathes too, in and out, and doesnāt speak. I tug on the nylon thread. The smile of her cut purses its lips, and sighs close, a dark red line, neat as an inter-rib stab. I test the line with a stained thumb, and cut the thread, and put down the scissors, and then, only then, I admit back into my world the weight of her gaze, a flash of light instantly stolen away.
āPainful?ā I shape out of my mouth, though I donāt hear it at all.
āOf course not,ā she signs for me, even if I could have read her lips.
Of course not. Never pain, Una. Never pain but this excruciating, inaudible pain, curled in the swollen space between us.
āGood,ā I wink, putting away the surplus nylon. āWouldnāt want your ugly face to get uglier, would we?ā
I get a prize for that; a crooked smile, hooked to her left dimple, almost taken away as she turnsāno, donāt turn. I keep her in place, hand-snap against her jaw. Donāt turn; donāt move.
āCareful,ā she shapes. āYouāll be uglier than me if I break your teeth.ā
I show her my teeth, a gift horse offered, not yet denied.
āBut whoāll bite your head off then?ā I whisper.
For a while, she doesnāt speak, and she doesnāt look away. Sheās ugly, alright. I watch her face unmoving. Sheās ugly, ugly, ugly with gashes, old and new, ugly with bruising, with grime, with sweat, made uglier with the beating sun that charted on her too-pale skin the red outline of her eternal siftmaskāugly, spattered deep-fawn, burnt at the nose-bridge, ugly, my traitor, my specter, ugly as a dream, dream of her fox-eyes, edged moon-white, a flash of lightālong agoāstolen away.
I remember her eyes, when the shot rang. Wide, before they dimmed. I remember her eyes, and this: still here, under her silly orange hair, at the line of the scalp, unveiled by the hand I push into her hair. Look at that. Exit wound. Head shot. Look at it, on the curve of her skull, its gentle shape now, pink with baby-skin, sweet-puckered, raised like the mouth of a kiss. Just a scar. Just a scar, though it shattered then, though it bled and bled black and bled death, pulsing with my screaming.
When I swallow, my throat is tighter than my clenched teeth. And Iā
No. Her hand GRips my wrist before her meaning catches my eyes. Donāt, she enunciates. Donāt. Not a prayer: an order. Her grasp is hard, her gaze is harder. Her face gives nothing away, which gives everything away. Donāt, Nadeem. Cold as stone, clear as glass. Donāt, Nadeem.
For a moment, Iām almost tempted to yieldājust so she can look away, stone unturned, glass unbroken. For a moment, I am, almost, tempted toāgrant us both mercy. But I donāt. I donāt yield. I never yield, and she neither. I donāt want her to look away. I donāt want me to look away. I donāt. I donāt. I donāt. I wonāt. I wonāt. I wonāt.
Insteadāinstead, I touch the scar, thumb-brushing. Her nails sink into my wrist, and spurred by forbidding I catch her gaze. The silence is entire. The silence is ours. The space between us resorbs. Thumb-brushing, skin-to-skin, and in turn my mouth, mouth-brushing, slow, and low, and pressed, and pressed again, a kiss upon the kiss of the exit wound.
No space now.
Under my mouth, the glass of her mask cracks. Around my wrist, the stone of her hand trembles.
A kiss, upon a kiss.
No space between us, and the silence is ours.
The silence⦠The silence. Inside of it I slide my secret, a secret pressed, and pressed again, a kiss upon a kiss upon a kiss:
āIām sorry. Iām sorry. Iām sorry.ā