@absolutehorror :
on the bad days, it is "mari left" and a hand on the empty side of the bed and "she won't come back" and ishtar staring at a mirror waiting for someone else to join the frame and "mari's just like the rest, another leaf gone with the wind" and desperate kisses pressed to new mouth, searching for a fire extinguished a few months back. on the good days, mari is a name she does not remember the taste of. ishtar is too busy learning a boy's lips, his body a sweet machine she takes apart. it is a boy that she knows from before : a name that hasn't been tainted yet, who doesn't know the road she crossed and will never come back from. still, she loves him for what comes after : the way he presses kisses into her neck when she stares absentmindedly into the distance. the way he anchors her into every moment with words and lips and gestures. the way she is not lost, but found, and not alone, but loved. and perhaps she does not love him right, but he is a gift that keeps on giving ; her hands cannot stop from prying him apart. and if some nights, she expects the punishing edge of a knife, some ill-meaning teeth against her throat, hands forcibly holding her down, violent words sweetly whispered against her ear... no one has to know.
she comes to regret it later, but that is the kind of realization one can only make once presented with proof of one's poor choice : you do not mark a decision as stupid until you are five feet apart from the boy & mari, the punishing edge of a knife pressed against his throat, not yours. ishtar watches, enraptured, the girl who came back & the boy who stayed. a lovely tragedy, the mind supplies, were it not yours to play out : ishtar knows how the story ends before the actors have found the last lines to murmur, the last gestures to orchestrate. one step & he will be lost to her forever OR one step & mari will be lost to her forever — which is no choice at all. « it ain't fair, let him g... » she breathes, and the sentence isn't even out before the temperature drops : it is cold, cold, cold, cold,
just like the sound his body makes when the blade goes from one side to the other. like the thump of his body (soon-to-be corpse) meeting the ground. like her mind as she moves, a machine made ouf of metal, to meet him. like his cheeks but not like his throat, and the blood coming out of it, and she's holding on for dear life.
without the red staining her fingers, the mind supplies, this moment is simply her strangling him & him letting it happen & someone, somewhere, is whispering to her, [ ain't that exactly what happened here, baby ? ] she holds on tight & then tighter, and he's looking at her so fucking scared, and she's breathing am sorry, am so sorry, yer gonna be okay, just hold on, fuckin' hold on, mari, do somethin', come on, move, MOVE, he's dyin', he's fuckin' dyin', mari, come on now, fuck, fuck, please don't, don't... as the gurgling sounds of an open wound & a boy trying to survive finally stop, her forehead meets his torso. his name a forgotten sound she didn't even pronounce. [ his last memory ; the girl who didn't love him right pronouncing his murderer's name as if she was the only salvation possible ] the curtains don't fall this time, they let it all happen, the crowd fascinated : the boy's actor leaving the stage only for her to be holding a corpse, her crimson hands clinging to something dead [ a habit, meaning you should have expected it ] and yet. she did not. she is crying ; she thinks she is crying. someone, somewhere, surely, is making those choking sounds : after all, the boy cannot be the one making them. the boy cannot be doing anything. the boy is dead. dead. something, somewhere deep, breaks.
« yer fuckin' sick. ya know that, right ? » clenched teeth barely let the truth crawl out in an ugly drawl. she doesn't look up, eyes closed as her forehead searches for an absent pulse, a ghostly rise & fall of his chest. sticky sweet blood keeping her anchored to the body, the body anchored to the ground it's meant to be joining very soon. « ain't surprised yer parents didn't fuckin' care 'bout ya. how could they ? » it's slow and mechanical and so unishtar-like that it should be worrying. she moves ; rises. bloody forehead, hands and lips. her voice is a silent snake, attacking in all the obvious places, as her body changes its posture. such a mess of crimson under the fluorescent lights. a gash of red for her otherwise eery white skin, eery white hair, eery clear blue eyes. « yer so weak. can't fuckin' stand to lose a game so ya kill whoever's willin' to take yer spot. 'cause that's the lesson, right ? ya leave me, but i ain't gettin' to escape ya either. ya can't stand me but ya can't stand me gone either, now, can ya ? fuckin' coward. » and with each accusation there's a step, until she is close, so close she might even be going for a kiss, and for a second she seems to agree, she seems to be angling her head just the right way, and her hand is around mari's throat but it's gentle, and the other is crushing her fingers, but with the way she looks at it, she might as well be begging to be hold her hand. and it isn't slow, or deliberate, but it is there, the moment of hesitation, the moment where the bad & good days get mixed up and she doesn't remember which one she is playing in. the glitch only lasts a second, though, & then ishtar remembers they are dancing over the grave of what just happened. ishtar is not going for a kiss, and her bloody forehead is definitely meeting mari's nose in a bone-crushing sound as her other hand tries to go for the handle of the knife.
