spilled ink

[moonrisewrites]

You know, when I was sixteen I used to wear white fishnets. I used to wear them because I was too scared to cut there in case boys saw my legs and they would because boys saw me all the time. So I'd wear white fishnets, because if you focus your eyes just right the cross hatches look like scars. They look like scars and it helped. I'd sit on the edge of my bed and look at them out of the corner of my eye and for a second it was like I could pretend every part of me hurt as much as I did on the inside. And it helped. It did. It helped to pretend. I don’t know. I guess I just miss that. "Miss what?" Being so scared that play pretend was enough. "You’re not scared anymore?" Not of hurting. "Then of what?" Me.

b.m.

[moonrisewrites]

Bradley avoided the girl’s stare, choosing instead to float inside to inspect some picture frames. Laughter. Proper laughter, eyes wrinkling at the corners and cheeks blown breathlessly red. The photos were so happy it made something in her hurt.

Bradley Milligan.

[moonrisewrites]

The red lights were growing oppressive; it was like looking up at those flickering bulbs was staring into the Devil’s flaring nostrils to spy all the intricate threads of his furious brain.

idk #2

[moonrisewrites]

Winter Girls

“She looks like a shoelace. Flapping around in the wind all roughed up at the edges. I wouldn’t want to tie her onto my shoe, that’s for sure,” Raya commented as a piece of candyfloss disintegrated into flecks of sugar on Nyla’s tongue. They were anchored to one of the fences out back, cigarettes cindering in the parking spaces between their fingers and dangling from their lips all Hollywood cool. A girl was flouncing about a few steps away with a boy, throwing her arms around like a napkin caught in a wind storm.

“Poor guy doesn’t know what’s hit him. It’s like he’s being interrogated by a Herbal Essences advert,” Nyla motioned, glowing cherry pointing to the girl as she flung her hair up into the cold hands of the sky. 

[moonrisewrites]

She swung around the centre of the dance floor like a fist fight, fluorescent paint on a plain page. I didn’t even need to dance, because my heart was already doing the two-step when I watched her, clumsy and nervous, a seventeen year old boy with two left feet.

idk

[moonrisewrites]

American Dynasty

“Move, bitch, get out the way,” Luca crooned under her breath, clamping a waffle iron shut and fiddling with the buttons. In truth, the music blaring from the earphones was anything but her thing, but the abandoned iPod she’d found a week earlier was proving a handy time killer during long shifts. It was only upon turning around, head bobbing as she repeated the lyric, that she spotted a wide eyed child propped on a tattered bar stool. “Oh…I… Sorry.” Sheepishly laying down the family’s plates and avoiding a glare from the mother, Luca hurriedly paced down the counter to another customer, yanking an ear bud free.

“Welcome to Quincy’s, home of the fluffiest pancakes and the crispiest bacon.” It took everything she had not to grit her teeth through the false cheer. “What can I get you today?”

[moonrisewrites]

I want to slit open my stomach and rummage around for the key I swallowed like a mouthful of punctuation, three exclamation marks ripping my throat ragged when I said I didn’t love you.

Nyla’s diary.

[moonrisewrites]

Sun Daze

It was a lazy Sunday, the sky a blooming spring pastel. And cooped inside her lavish Beaumont residence, furnishing the room like marbled statues of Greek gods, sprawled Skye, Wyatt, Elliot and Jacob. Ignoring his protests, Skye laced her fingers about a small teal pot of varnish and yanked out the brush. “Trust me. It will bring out your eyes.” Ignoring the outlandish chuckle from Jacob’s direction, Skye tugged Elliot’s hand toward her prying clutches. Beginning to paint the blue onto his fore finger, she raised a brow as Wyatt spoke up. “I just took this quiz and according to Cosmo, I’m too into my looks for a man to appreciate my inner beauty. I bet an ugly person wrote that.”  

“Maybe they saw you wearing that sweater and knew love just wasn’t on the cards for you.” The brunette mused, a feline quirk sparking up in her lips as she blew lazily to dry the varnish. The thud of a pillow later Skye shrieked, the paint set in sticky blotches as it smudged over the boy’s entire finger given the sudden attack. “And to think, you could’ve been the prettiest boy of the ball.” Executing a limp sigh, Skye patted sympathetically at the Stern boy’s cheek. “There’s always next year.”

[moonrisewrites]

Inked Regret

“We need something majestic. I’m talking Dalai Lama graceful. Maybe even verging on a Gandhi level of liberating. A sophisticated medley of sweet and spicy.” Jacob wiggled his eyebrows at the muscle endowed tattoo artist, a stern and furrowed forehead set like stone acting as his only answer. “Not very creatively inspired? That’s okay, I have enough artistic juices for the both of us, my man.” Slapping his palm enthusiastically against his leather waistcoat, Jacob yanked a sketch out from the masses. “Elliot, this really speaks to me. Hey, doesn’t it look kind of like that chick Wyatt whipped his pretzel at yesterday? If you squint a little.” The boy proposed, shoving the sheet of paper beneath his nose to reveal that it housed an elaborate sketch of a beaver. “Great teeth. Slap that bad boy on there.”

[moonrisewrites]

Ellen Degeneres Peep Show

With a jolt the arch of Skye’s back was smudging through a thin veil of condensation lathering the tiled wall, her fingers tangling themselves feverishly in with his tawny locks as a smirk ghosted her lips – one that was quickly replaced by Samuel’s on hers. Communal was hardly a word that Skye was accustomed to, but as the Hayes boy dipped his head to feather his lips along her neck, she was beginning to come to the realisation that she could get used to such a location. Yanking his chin up, their mouths roughly aligned once more, trading hungered kisses beneath the constant stream of water currently scorching its way along the right hand that grabbed her thigh. It was only when the pair moved their venture to the adjacent wall that she glimpsed a head of blonde ogling curiously through the breach of the curtain. “What the fuck—“ She began, hesitantly reaching the hand that had been etching down his torso to peel back the beige divide and peer through. “This isn’t a fucking peep show. Head to Amsterdam if you’re really that desperate to see a nipple, for God’s sake. Get out of here, Ellen.” A menacing look shot in his direction concluded her sentence before she dragged the cubicle back into privacy, a tendril of spritely laughter drifting up along with the steam as Samuel’s hands encircled her waist once more.

[moonrisewrites]

Confession

Cancer. On her tongue alone the word tasted as heavy as a tombstone. But it wasn’t until the mention of no light on the horizon came into play that Skye parted her lips, urging a noise to come out. Silence. Squeezing her eyes into a tightly compressed blink, the brunette willed herself not to show a whisper of her sadness. He was her best friend. He’d thrown her favourite hat in the mud at Central Park and lost her purse somewhere along fifth avenue and he had cancer. He was dying.

“You—cancer.” She repeated, staring fixedly at a darker spot tarnishing the wood of the table. “Cancer.” Despite all of her best efforts, it was like the warmth was burning right out of her hazel irises as she sat there with the boy that she’d come to see as family since a mere fifteen. He was part of their dysfunctional little jigsaw and he was dying. “You have to tell her now. Right now. Because if not time is passing all the time and I know if—“ She trailed off, shaking her head as her voice splintered into a thousand quaking pieces. “If it was me, I—I’d want to be with you for as long as I could. So just tell her. And she’s—she’s going to cry. And she’s—oh, god, this is going to kill her.” Fury surged up within her as she swatted at her cheek, catching a stray tear in her palm before it could trace its mark down to her jaw. “This isn’t fair. This isn’t fair.” She insisted, finally meeting his gaze. “What are we supposed to do without you? Who’s going to make outrageous jokes and—and punch all of the loud mouth assholes and do all of the stupid things that everyone else thinks are dumb—who’s going to—“ Adamantly shaking her head, she finally succumbed to her fractured whisper. “Who’s going to be Nathaniel Langford when you’re not? Nothing’s going to make sense without you.”

[moonrisewrites]

Choice

A gun loaded with a trilogy of bullets, hovering like a luminous question mark between the pair as he bared his teeth in a snarl of a smile. “What’s it to be, princess? The boy or the girl?”

“Please. Please don’t. Please just wait, don’t do this. You don’t have to—you don’t—“

“I don’t have to? Oh, I know I don’t. But I want to. Do you know how fucking tedious it is blending into every single background when you and your fucked up group of precious debutantes are standing centre fold? Very tedious indeed. A little boring, to be honest. Terribly predictable. So, here we are, Skye Montgomery. Fenton royalty, isn’t that right?” Tears spilled without spare down her cheeks, blurring the kneeling silhouette of Indiana as she attempted to focus on her, attempted to gather some kind of masterful plan that they were always concocting with just one desperate look. But this wasn’t one of their little games anymore.

“Please. I’ll do anything. Just—“ Voice shaking beyond repair, Skye attempted to swallow in order to steady her thundering heartbeat that by now was practically in her ears. “Just please don’t touch them. Don’t hurt them. You have me. Take me. I don’t care. I don’t, I don’t care. Please-- let them go. Please just let them go. Oh god, please-- please.” She stammered relentlessly between shuddering sobs, eyes widening as they registered the bulb of impatience bursting within the boy’s eyes.

“Too slow.” That was it. That was all he said. All he said before he pulled the handgun up to Samuel’s temple and tore back on the trigger. And for everything, the fact that every single detail of that day would never erase itself from her mind, she still couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember when she’d stopped screaming.

[moonrisewrites]

Handcuffs

“I swear to god, Samuel Easton Hayes. You are not peeing while I’m handcuffed to you.” She protested, turning up her nose as she attempted to wrangle him back from the bathroom door like you might a rabid dog. “Don’t.” Skye insisted, attempting to mask her tone in authority as he slowly reached for the handle, narrowing her eyes at the curious looks shot from bystanders also in attendance of the penthouse held party. “If you turn that handle I’m disowning you. I’m packing you a bag and shipping you off to Mexico. You’d go down a hoot there, they have a thriving gay community. Pretty boys are snatched up in no time.” In spite of herself she succumbed to a laugh at the thought, tipping her head back and feeling her curls tickle themselves between her shoulder blades. It was in that moment that he pounced, the wooden divide flying in on itself and the pair of them stumbling in in a single, muddled blur. “Samuel. If you pee in front of me then whatever attraction I held for you is going to disappear down in the flush with your urine.” The brunette sulked, making to cross her arms in a grumpy gesture but growing exasperated as his hand tangled in with the action. After a prolonged silence, she finally met his gaze, an inquisitive and irritated eyebrow raising to meet his smug smile. “What?”

“So you’re attracted to me, huh?”

“That’s not what--... shut up.” She scowled, shoving him out of the door as he feigned protest midst triumphant laughter.

[moonrisewrites]

Single Ladies

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Stern.” Jacob bellowed into his companion’s ear as they navigated the crowd, occasionally busting out a forceful thrust to the beat of the bass as they rallied the crowds during their wait, much to those nears dismay – at one point a girl had been sent flying, hurled through the crowd from the force of his body popping. “I’m getting into the groove of it. Why calm down? Beyoncé is here. Do you think she wants us calm? No way, dude.” With that last enunciation, Jacob began violently fist pumping to the extent that it seemed dauntingly possible he might dislocate his shoulder. Perhaps the fact that Jacob had an hour previously thrown two pills back as Elliot screamed in protest wasn’t necessarily helping his rowdy charisma. Providing Jacob with more reason to unleash his inner dancing queen was like feeding a gremlin after midnight – it never ended well. The last time this had occurred, he’d been punched, although that didn’t serve as too much of a surprise, but he’d also lost his shoe and boxers. They were his favourite pair – polka dotted with the occasional duck. He had locked himself in his room for a week in order to satisfy a respectable mourning period. “Besides, I’m just warming up. Getting my limbs swinging. Warming up is an essential part of a work out, Elliot.” Taking on a serious tone, he clamped a hand onto the boy’s wrist and threw it up in the air, beginning to wildly barge forwards in order to reduce their distance from the front barriers.

[moonrisewrites]

Wedding Blues

“I don’t have cold feet,” Skye protested, nervously swatting the netting of her dress into correct alignment. “If anything, I have scorching feet. They’re on fire. They’re being burned to stumps, for fuck sake. It feels hot in here. Right? Is that just me?” Twisting on the spot, she began to squint suspiciously at the ventilation system lacing itself along the west side of the room before feeling Indiana spinning her around to greet her with a steely gaze. “Don’t look at me like that. Indiana Avery Rockwell don’t stare into my soul like some kind of insane ghoulish demon. It’s just…it’s a big step. Like twelve big steps. Down an aisle in a room full of people. Big steps. Lots of them.” Skye tripped over her words, tugging insistently at the waistline of her dress. “Does this even fit? I feel like it’s going to just fall off. Flop to the ground like a fainting nun mid ceremony and—“

“Calm your shit Montgomery, you’re going to give yourself a migraine. You’ll end up posing for photos for the wedding album looking constipated. Here, okay?” Gently lifting her fidgeting fingertips from the embellished net of her dress, Indiana curled a garter into her palm. “Something blue, remember?” Indiana closed the brunette’s fingers over the item and held it there. “Listen, okay? You love him. You can easily say that now. And before that seemed like this huge mountain, this impossible climb that you couldn’t make. And you did it. And you’re fine. Samuel’s out there probably looking handsome as anything in a suit and you’re going to go and do this, because you want to. No, you need to. Because so help me god, Skye Penelope Obama, if you deny yourself something that I know you’ve been wanting since we were sixteen, then I’m going to shred this couture gown like a housecat on catnip.”

[moonrisewrites]

Family Business

“I’m on the phone to my daughter, Paul. You either shut your fucking mouth or I’ll rip it off with pliers.” His voice on the other end of the line was muffled but Bradley could still hear him, sharp as a blood stained knife. Rolling her eyes, she pushed an arm through the other sleeve of a hoody she’d stolen from Max.

“That isn’t very polite.”

A chuckle rang through the phone. “It’s discipline, Bradley. Now, how’s school?”

“School’s fine.”

“Good. Don’t let the snow affect your studies. You’ve got a bright head on you, kid,” he spoke distractedly, the sound of papers being shuffled clouding his words.

“I won’t, dad. I didn’t really ring for a catch up. More business stuff.”

Silence buzzed between them before eventually, he broke it.

“Tell me.”

Bradley chewed her lip, eyes trained on the snow falling outside her window. It usually made a habit of calming her down, but now each snowflake was just starting to look like a letter. A ‘B’ stuck to the window sill, an ‘R’ splattering next to it in a disorganised clump. Brody Hall’s name hadn’t left her mind since it had left Max’s mouth.

“There’s this guy.”

She could practically hear his jaw clenching.

“This guy? Don’t be vague. I don’t have time for that shit.”

“He messed around with Pearl,” she said simply, avoiding looking outside and instead staring at the mess along her desktop. It was easier to lie. She didn’t mention boys she cared about any more. He always got too angry. Besides, this way it involved him, too. Pearl had worked at bars of his before. She was an investment. Business wasn’t to be infringed upon by strangers.

“He messed around with Pearl?” His voice was cool and detached. “What does that mean, Alyssa? Use your words. What are you trying to tell me?”

Blinking slowly, she didn’t respond. Clearly he was well into his whiskey. He never called her by her mom’s name unless his head wasn’t straight.  

“Bradley,” she corrected after a moment, clearing her throat. “He really messed her up.”

“She’s already pretty fucking messed up,” he snorted, a glass clinking against its coordinating bottle in the background. Biting her tongue, she had to resist from commenting on the irony of him, of all people, saying so. Then, it was like something shifted, humour dissipating in one breath, replaced by worry in the next. “I don’t like that. That really… It troubles me, kid. I feel really bad about it.”

She fought the urge to choke on a humourless laugh, taking a seat on the edge of her bed. Sincerity was never his strong suit. “Yeah. Really troubling.”

“Yeah… Listen, I have a pretty busy schedule,” he excused, an impatient sigh rattling along the line. “I’ve got the guys around. Jason’s driving me up the fucking wall. You know what he’s like. Always talking about that ugly fucking wife of his. Give me a br—“

“It was me. The guy messed with me,” Bradley blurted, her muscles tensing up when he didn’t reply. It was the only way to get his attention. His form of love meant ownership and he didn’t like sharing.

“Give me a name.”

Hesitation climbed the notches of her spine. She couldn’t bring herself to look out the window again. Her mom loved the snow.

“Bradley? I said give me a fucking name.”

“Brody. His name’s Brody. Brody Hall.”

The line went dead.

[moonrisewrites]

Mirror

“It’s like you have a death wish.”

“Hypocrite.” Her words were hydrochloric acid, corrosive. Blown pupils didn’t care for loyalties or tendered tones, only for truth, acrid and bound to leave a stain. “Takes one to know one.” Her steps were drowsy as she shuffled between feet, cold feasting on her goose bumps as the pair stood in the dimly lit street. She was sporting a bust lip, one that got smeared into a violent red oil painting along the body of her cigarette as she tried to spark her dying lighter to the end. A window breaking beside them indicated that her stranger for the night had politely borrowed them a form of transportation. A new looking Lexus. It was a decent find, not unexpectedly parked along the dirty streets behind a gentleman’s club.

“Besides,” she began, shoving her lighter into her pocket and yanking the unlit cigarette from her mouth, “that’s just how I am, isn’t it? Stupid.” Pausing, she let the words hang on the air, sentence choppy and unfinished. The passenger door was flung open, a furious invitation to come inside screamed from across the dashboard. She tried to hide her flinching, folding herself into upholstered leather after a seconds pause. Try as she might, she looked an awful lot like a scared little girl there, in that car, swamped in a foreign leather jacket with bruises glaring like sirens against pale features. “I’m always wanting things that fuck with my head.” She caught his eye for a moment, exasperation clear in his, fear that had been chewed up and swallowed deep down whispered in hers.

It was useless. They’d never say it. Ignore it sober, mumble it drunk, distract from it with sordid quips and party trinkets elsewhere. But that didn’t stop her from looking back as the tires peeled off the pavement, squealing away into the darkness. Something about his face as she disappeared around the corner made her wish she'd drank something stronger.