#!srh

[ballgameballgame]

Beckett couldn’t remember that last time it had rained so hard. 

The girl in front of him was kind of pretty, he thought, and he liked the way her makeup ran in streaks down her hollow cheeks. Her hair covered her eyes, so Beckett moved the sopping mess of overgrown bangs aside and stared straight into the lifeless blue orbs they had kept hidden from view. He could feel something protruding from her skull—probably horns or something like that; he had never seen someone’s condition progress to such a state—and he decided that killing her now would be doing her the kindest favor. If she were able to, if she were coherent and aware of her surroundings, she would definitely be thanking him. 

"But you don’t really know what’s going on, do you, pretty lady?" he asked.

He thought that maybe he would like to burn her up and scatter her lovely ashes around until she was a part of the same dirt and dust and shit as everything else on this miserable planet. 

That wouldn’t do, though. He placed his hands gently on either side of her head and stared at her. Maybe he wanted to kiss her first. She was probably much older than him and that, he figured, was what he liked the most about her. 

"I wish I could know your name," he said. "I wish I could know a few things about you. I’ll bet a lot of people miss you right now. If I could feel for you, I would feel very, very sad." 

He sighed and closed his eyes, gently pressing his forehead against the girl’s. 

A clap of thunder caught him off guard and he stumbled backwards— and to his surprise, the girl grabbed on to him, her chapped lips zipped shut and her half-lidded gaze opened fully into a look of pure and utter confusion. “Y-you,” she whispered, and another clap of thunder drowned out her voice, dry and cracked from lack of use. 

"What’s wrong with you?" Beckett asked, digging around in his pockets for something but not even knowing what it was he was looking for. "You… you’re okay?" 

"Okay?" the girl repeated. "It’s raining and I’m cold… Who are you?" 

"Who are you?" 

The girl stared at him intently, head tilted to the side and her lips forming a perfect ‘o’, as if she truly didn’t understand what he was asking her. “Someone was here,” she said, pressing her hand against the side of her head, “and here.” She placed her other hand against her stomach. “I guess that’s where your soul is. Or something.”

"Whatever," Beckett sniffed. Every word she spoke, every crack in her soft, dampened voice made him want to love her, and he hated that. 

"And they were really bad. They made me feel bad. I couldn’t make myself walk, or talk, or anything at all. I had no control over my body a-and… I… I’m really… cold…" 

Beckett looked at the girl 

"What’s your name?" she asked. He could hardly hear her over the rain. 

"Beckett. What’s yours?" 

"Skip."

“Skip?”

"It’s a nickname. Don’t be rude," Skip said, and she smiled at him. "Thank you. I guess. Suddenly I saw you and I knew you had saved me. Whatever it was that you did got that monster out of me. I saw your face and I blinked. I blinked. Me. And it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. You know, it’s raining really, really hard, and I don’t really like the rain. I think we should go somewhere.”

"You can go somewhere. I’ll go somewhere else." 

"Don’t be like that, Beckett You saved my life! I’m a person again. I’m me. I want to celebrate." 

Beckett scoffed. “I don’t think it’s worth celebrating.” 

Her cold hand grabbed his before he could hide his nervous, twitching fingers inside the pockets of his school blazer. She smiled, but the smile turned into a wince. “It hurts,” she said, “but I’m glad. You know?” 

"Yeah," Beckett muttered, averting his gaze from her sleepy eyes and locking onto the gap between her thighs, then the curve of her hips, and finally her lips. "I know." 

[ballgameballgame]

It was getting dark and Violet was restless. The season was changing, the air getting colder, the days getting shorter, and she could no longer go out in just shorts and a t-shirt. Mother bought her new shoes and sweaters and they all made her feel stuffy and suffocated. 

“I’m going to the creek,” she said, pulling one of Elijah’s sweatshirts over her head. 

“Put on shoes,” Elijah said. He gently pulled Violet’s hair out of the neck of the sweatshirt and smoothed it over with a gentle touch.

“No.”

“Socks, at least.”

“No. They make me feel bad.” 

“Alright. Don’t get in the water. It’s too cold for that now.”

Violet nodded. Mother could have said the exact same thing and it would have passed straight through her head without any thought at all, but Elijah—Violet always listened to him.

She left quietly, as to not alert and worry Mother. She walked by Junior’s house—his parents’ house—and his mother gave her a friendly wave from the front porch. “Tell my son I said hello. He won’t have a thing to do with me these days.”

“Me either,” said Violet.

“It’s that girl.”

Violet was silent.

“Have a nice evening, sweetheart. Be careful.”

Violet was silent still and Junior’s mother continued tending to her flowers.

“I’ll tell Junior,” Violet said finally. She decided to cross by that house, hopping the fence in the backyard and stumbling as she landed in the thick, cool grass. The creek wasn’t too far away and this shortcut was actually more trouble than it was worth, but Violet enjoyed.

This town was very natural—that’s what everyone always said about it. It boasted large stretches of untouched wilderness and Violet loved the best and the worst of it. Sticker weeds, grass that reached her knees, and precariously situated rocks that she loved to hop about and nap on if the weather permitted.

She admitted to herself that she should have worn shoes when she stopped on a jagged stone that dug into the side of foot and drew a bit of blood. Elijah was always worried and he was always right.

When she got to the creek, she realized that she was not alone. A boy was sitting quietly under her favorite tree—her favorite tree to climb in, however, not sit under, so he didn’t bother her at all.

In fact, the boy was a friend.

Violet called out his name and gave him a fright. “Hey, Violet,” he said, clearing his throat and trying to regain his composure as quickly as possible.

Violet played along. “Hi, Dominic.”

“It’s a little chilly and… you’re not wearing shoes. And you’re bleeding!”

“Oh.” Violet glanced at her foot. “It’s fine.”

“You should disinfect it or you—oh. This must be how Elijah talks to you all the time, huh?”

“Not all the time. But still. A lot.”

Dominic smiled—perhaps. Violet couldn’t quite tell; His face was shaded by the loose, overhanging branches above him. A single leaf fell in his lap and he absent mindedly folded it in half. “Do you want to sit down?”

She did.

“How’s school going for you so far?”

She shrugged.

“You haven’t been going.”

“You already knew that.”

“Yeah, but I wanted you to say it. For once, I would like to hear something from you. Why aren’t you going to school? You’ll get kicked off the team at this rate. If something wrong? Is someone giving you trouble?”

Violet pulled a hitchhiker off of Dominic’s jacket and pressed it between her fingers. “No,” she replied after some hesitation.

“Then what’s the deal?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.  I don’t care. It’s just hard to get out of bed some days.”

“You ever tell Elijah that?”

“No.”

“Because he doesn’t ask you too many questions, does he?”

“After a certain point he starts accepting just yes or no.”

“Maybe you should see a doctor.”

Violet shook her head. She reached out and gently placed her hand against Dominic’s cheek. “Dominic.”

“What?”

“You’re driving me crazy.”

Dominic look perplexed for just a second, but then he smiled and took Violet’s small hand in his own. “Yeah. Sorry. I just want you to do well. I don’t mean in school or on the field. I just mean… in general. You know? So does Elijah. Your parents. Even… Junior.”

“He hates me,” Violet sighed. She closed her eyes and shrugged, slowly pulling her hand away from Dominic’s.

“No he doesn’t. You should spend some alone time with that guy, let him talk on and on about whatever for a little while. There is absolutely no one on this planet that he hates as much as himself. I wouldn’t worry about him. Or anyone else.”

They were almost completely covered in darkness except for  a sliver or two of dusky light making its way through the trees. It illuminated only half of everything Violet wanted to see—Dominic’s smile and the mascot on his hoodie and just him, but she still enjoyed the view. 

[ballgameballgame]

"Prettier than you, prettier than you." Skip speaks in little sighs, her voice is scratchy. She takes the dolls and cuts their hair. "Prettier than you, prettier than you." She pulls off heads and arms, scratches off painted lips until they all look like her. 

And she—

hurts. 

And she sings, little sighs, “Lost my partner, what’ll I do?” 

Skip moves, sighs, scratchy, ugly to see, cold to touch, little sighs against Junior’s chest while he tugs so lightly at her hair—she’s prettier than them, he says, and she is ugly and he hates her. She hurts. 

Junior leaves—and he lies. She’s his pretty girl and he’ll come back later with dresses and treats. He is sweet in the mornings. One, two, three kisses and he pleads with her to go back to bed. Kiss, kiss, kiss. 

In little sighs, she whispers, and he doesn’t hear. She’ll kill him.

"If you leave me, I’ll kill you."

There is a doll in her hands, without a head, ugly. “Prettier… than… you…” Punctuated by snapping plastic limbs, she sings her song.

Junior is hers, her boy who gives and gives, hers to pet and scratch and she sighs, her lips against his ear. He comes home. He is hers. He told the truth and he will again. 

They are honest—disgustingly so. He will come home with dresses and treats. If he leaves her, she will kill him.

Every morning it’s three kisses before he leaves.

"Prettier than you," she sighs with the loveliest doll pressed against her lips.

One day he will be late and the dolls with be scratched—and scratched—and scratched.

It will hurt for a little while, punctuated with the smallest sighs, she will sing a little song as the color leaves his face, she will sigh against his punctured chest. 

"Lost my partner, what’ll I do?"

It will hurt. He will hurt and she—

hurts. 

[ballgameballgame]

Wake up, Elijah, and resurface.

But—he is so, so tired. Someone has been holding him down and his body aches. But there is Violet, with her slightly downturned lips. She is wearing her baseball helmet. Wake up, Elijah, wake up.

“Wake up,” Violet says. She is very quiet.

Elijah.

Wake up.

“Elijah!”

He can feel himself taking control. His hands, his eyes, his voice. They belong to him again. He can make a fist, clutching onto Violet’s coat, and he can blink, blink, blink, nervously, clearing his blurred vision. He can speak—“Where… and, uh, wh-what?” is all he can manage, but it’s something.

“Are you okay?” Violet asks. “I punched you in the face.”

“What? Why?” He tries to move but is seized by the soreness in his stomach. He lets himself crumble, and realizes that his head is in Violet’s lap.

“And I hit you with my bat! Right in the stomach.”

“Violet, why did you do that?!”

“You were trying to hurt me!”

As if Elijah could let him believe that for one second. He chuckles and his body tenses up. “You really got me good, Violet,” he mumbles, turning over on his side and facing away from her. “What was I doing?”

“You were really scary and your eyes were dead. I hit you until all the meanness was gone. I’m sorry.” Violet leans down and kisses his cheek. “I’m sorry, Eli.”