@ragekill sent: 𝙸 𝚆𝙰𝚂 𝙹𝚄𝚂𝚃 𝚃𝚁𝚈𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚃𝙾 𝙷𝙴𝙻𝙿.
𝚃𝙴𝙽 𝚈𝙴𝙰𝚁𝚂 𝚆𝙰𝚂 𝙰 𝙻𝙾𝙽𝙶 𝚃𝙸𝙼𝙴 𝙶𝙾𝙽𝙴. A lifetime, some would say. Bodies rot to bones in less than that. Paint fades and images yellow out of focus, abraded to smears of motion by ageless tides — death without abundant cruelty. There was a part of her that, tethered under those many years alone, had hoped for a sliver of such morbid kindness on her return. As if her own body could be left wayside, forgotten, so that she might trace soft lines back through the past without incident, the way deer traverse the underbrush. Careful to keep the leaves undisturbed.
Three blocks up the road from here her childhood home stands empty. Neatly stacked in the front room and kitchen are a dozen boxes, sealed up and clearly labeled. Every part of her past there sorted into appropriate categories to give away, or to burn. When she’d walked into the house for the first time in a decade, a sharp pang of shock had taken her at just how little her mother had left. As if she’d been dead for years already. Even now the depth of that estrangement grips the back of her skull like a physical pain, encouraging the migraine embedded since she’d driven in to town.
Did you really think they’d leave a space for you there, after everything you did?
It didn’t matter. Life has never seen fit to flow as smoothly as all that. Instead of remaining a ghost as foolishly intended, the tire of her bike blew out on the highway, unkindly sparing her an exit from this whole wretched charade, and whatever patchwork plan she’d had following that was shredded with the rubber. That’s how simple it was. One sharp stone and suddenly she’s here, right here now, exposed to the rigid panes of history. Without a single word between them, Jackson recognized her face on the side of that dusty road, snared in his tracks all at once — ten years was not a long enough lifetime.
Haunting the doorway of her dingy motel room, Raynne allows her consciousness to wade farther away from the chilly pool of recent events, remaining unhurried in reply. The day’s heat is just now creeping down into the earth, allowing respite from the sweat-slicked afternoon, and she’s only half listening to him. A few doors down someone is playing music too loud, filtering muffled, directionless voices into the heady air. The distraction is a grateful filler.
Gradually, the pale, hooded emphasis of her gaze refocuses to him. In the twilight she is terribly beautiful, lean and colourless, classical angles of her face framed by the back-lit, half-wild tangle of hair that spills to her hips ; barefoot, dressed down in a loose tee shirt slipped off a shoulder, worn jeans, perched in the open doorway without ceremony ; leaning sidelong against the woodwork with the casual poise of a sculpture, still enough to match. Romantic, or some equally stupid word. She can think like that now with him in view, think it and do nothing.
Quiet fairly though, he looks even better than she remembered, grown into himself the same as she is. He’s older of course, but divested of none of his near-boyish intensity. Blue eyes and that terrible, guiltless smile, sharp as a knife. Even now it plucks to life, unwarranted in the moment, as if the mere sight of it could bring the same from her, pointedly softening the moment between them. But she hasn’t really smiled in a long time. Across her curve of her midriff one arm tightens, the other held with an elbow against the back of her hand, draped downwards to couch a cigarette loosely next to her thigh, fingers lax. Absently, her thumb taps ash off the end of it while she watches him. It’s painfully clear she isn’t going to invite him in.
If he were someone else, she might have it within her to deny the tight, discordant threads of attraction laced between them. Invisible but tactile, loped around their still forms these few paces apart. If she was someone else in turn, she may have it in her to cave to the relieving, sweet-boned want of it all. But the sharp focus in her won’t leave, the barbed end of whatever vicious intention she can’t act on, frozen in the still line of her chest with nothing to show. Like a wounded fucking animal.
‘ Just — ’ What? Honestly slides out, quick as a thief, before she has the rest of her worst intentions grasped. Leave me alone with all this. No, that’s too final. It isn’t what she means, but it jumps like a dog anyway, clawing at the screen door, breaking in through the impatient sigh she allows. Whether she can allow space for it in her mind, she’ll want to see him again — if only for goodbyes. Steeped in the yellow light from inside the room, she’s a radiant shadow, a hollow space, slim-lined and haloed by smoke and tense history. It feels as though she could fade to vapors right there if she really tried. For a long moment it seems the only answer to everything, to simply close her eyes and let go.
‘ There isn’t anything to help with. You don’t have to worry about me. ’
We don’t owe each other anything. A lie, but a warm one. Shaped correctly to slice along the bone of any taut emotion otherwise felt, cleaving it free. Years of butchery has gifted her a practiced hand. He’s standing there and looking at her with apologetic tenderness, like he’s sorry he has to feel this way at all, or maybe because she’s bleeding from a wound she can’t herself see, and whatever tender thing it is drags a particular hate along the inside of her ribs. She wants very badly to hit him. The hand at her side tightens barely and goes slack again.
‘ I won’t be here long. ’ As in, you doesn’t have to tell anyone I’ve been here at all. From the moment she’d rolled into town in the passenger seat of that fucking tow truck cab, it was as though a beartrap sprung around her ankle. Even now, days after, the taste of blood still wells in her mouth at the echoed moment, like she’s still splitting the inside of her cheek to bridle the scream of it all. With every word spoken she can feel the teeth dig deeper, metal to bone. How long till there’s nothing left to cleanly break?
‘ The bike will be fixed tomorrow, I’ll pick it up and be out of your way. ’ No emotion effects the velvet sweep of her voice, roughened marginally by this fifth cigarette of the night still smoldering in hand. Don’t make this harder then it has to be. With that, shoulders pull from the doorframe as she draws up, ready to retreat. Some flicker of tension chases the corner of her mouth, allowing the smallest break in the stony façade. ‘ Goodnight, Jax. ’
