"now he’s gone and he’s calling me a bitch again." lydia @ someone :(
there’s something about the way lydia’s voice catches, as if she’s caught somewhere between brushing the confession off as a joke and digging underneath her fingernails for the splinters jackson’s left behind, either to retract them or finish the job, that reaches inside raven and exposes something wounded, something raw, something sore.
she fucking hates jackson.
later she’ll show a piece of scrap metal just how much— right up until finn shows up to eat dinner and study with her, and then after kissing him goodnight she’ll return to the consequences of her anger and use that kiss as fuel. for now, raven would like to say something helpful, something effectual, something that would make lydia smile again if nothing else. that, or she’d like to be the girl that says leave him, leave him, fucking leave him, but.
but. but finn is cheating on her and she knows it and he knows she knows it and they are trying to find ways to have sex around it. trying to find ways to feel less naked when they take their clothes off. they are trying to eat around it like it’s her least favorite vegetable or his least favorite fruit— gently pushing it towards the side of the plate in favor of something else.
in favor of all the years they’ve spent loving each other the best way they knew how, of how nothing finn does now necessarily negates his i love you’s, of how letting him go would feel like ripping out a vital part of herself, like dying. they are doing this, pushing it closer and closer to the edge, and pretending that it won’t eventually drop to the floor and pretending that raven won’t hate herself if it does, if it doesn’t. pretending finn won’t wonder why she didn’t smash the plate first in the way they both know she’d be good at, pretending raven would ever tell him after he’s taken away all that has sustained her over the years. pretending.
they’re not the same, of course. finn — is fucking other girls, but he’s always gentle. he detests guys like jackson. he’d stand between the jacksons of the world and any woman. he’d confront him. he’s that kind of guy, a good guy. and if he was going to call her a bitch, he’d find a nice way to put it — say it calmly and sweetly, tuck it in nice and neat between a metaphor about her hands and an innocent glance at her across the court yard as he has an innocent chat with a girl sweeter than she is, like lettuce between two pieces of bread.
‘ fuck that. ’
it doesn’t shatter glass, doesn’t break anything— but it’s said with enough ferocity to have a similar effect. that fierceness is underlined with the makings of raven, of her softness and her soreness and her protectiveness and her proactiveness. raven takes her hand as she says it, grip perhaps a little too tight, a little too abrupt, as is her curse.
‘ fuck him. that’s not okay, lydia. you deserve better than that. ’
