Story: In the Middle of Knowing (original work)
Alcohol, brief mention of suicide (nothing explicit and just a throwaway comment)
Original characters (Diana- age 18, Victoria- 18)
The story starts in the middle of my book (that I haven’t even finished yet I just needed to write this down), it doesn’t have a lot of plot.
Diana took a swig of her bitter beer. Usually, the taste would make her face twist and make her gag, but Diana could care less right about now. The alcohol flooding her system took away the bite of the cold. The fact that it took the edge off of her emotions didn’t hurt much either.
The dark city glittered and shined below Diana. Twinkling lights proving the existence of humanity sitting in the comfort of their homes.
Cars were desperate to get home and relax after a stressful day honked, hoping that somehow it would hurry things up. There was a couple a few apartments away that were hurling insults over some silly thing they wouldn’t even remember in a few days. The tune of an old, long passed artist filtered through the air.
Snow coated the surfaces around Diana, it fell on her hair without care and before it could even think about melting, a new layer took its place. Making itself home on the still unmoving girl. Diana’s body was starting to protest from sitting on the edge of the building for so long. She didn’t even know how long she’d been up there. Long enough to see the sun fall and the moon rise far ahead of her.
None of it mattered though. It was all just pointless, stupid information that Diana couldn’t bring herself to think twice about.
“Stop hiding. If you wanna say something then fucking say it. Otherwise, leave me the hell alone,” Diana slurred, finishing off her beer and placing it with the others before picking up another from the case.
“Should I be worried that you’re going to take a nosedive?” Victoria asked, she gracefully sat down next to Diana. She didn’t even question how Diana knew she was here because of course, she did. Diana always had a knack for finding people who didn’t want to be found.
“God, of course, it’s you. Why do you even care?” Diana huffed a bitter laugh. It wasn’t really a question though, she didn’t care what the answer was. Just more pointless information.
Diana perched her chin on top of her knee, letting the other hang uselessly over the edge. Victoria stayed silent, opting instead to lean back on her palms, staring out at the dark horizon.
They sat in silence that dragged on for minutes. It wasn’t awkward technically, but it sure as hell wasn’t comfortable. Victoria didn’t care though, she’d push through. She was willing to stay out here as long as necessary, even if it was in silence. Victoria wasn’t doing this for Diana though. It was just so stuffy and crowded inside the large building, she needed to get away from the stifling stench of morality. That’s all.
Finally, Victoria’s patience paid off when Diana broke the silence after taking a long drink.
“It’s her birthday today,” Diana’s voice was so soft. So breakable.
Victoria didn’t know how to react to it, so she didn’t. She kept her mouth closed as Diana gathered her thoughts.
Victoria didn’t take her eyes off of the girl, she couldn’t see her face since she was turned slightly away but Victoria could see enough. Diana’s usually baggy clothes didn’t have the same look to them. Before her confidence made it look stylish, comfortable, and like they were always meant to be worn like that. Now though, they hung off her frame like they were just as down as their owner. Her back was hunched, withdrawn, unsure.
Victoria was shaken from her thoughts when Diana continued.
“Every year on one of our birthday’s we’d sneak whatever alcohol we could smuggle and go find somewhere nice to watch the sunset. Been doin it since freshman year. We always thought we were so damn sneaky too. Stumbling into the kitchen every year and going away for a couple a’ hours. God, I’d bet you anything our parents knew. How could they not,” Diana laughed wetly.
Diana raised a shaky bottled to her lips and took a long drink to wash away her emotions. If anyone asked she’d say she was shaking cause of the cold.
“It’s kind of ironic don’t you think?” Victoria asked, crisscrossing her legs and snagging a beer for herself. Diana hummed in question, slowly blinking out at the rooftops.
“I mean the girl has fire powers but she was born in the winter?”
“Once she got her powers she threw the biggest hissy fit over it,” Diana laughed. Diana brought up her other leg and rested her forehead on both of her knees, not wanting the world to see what she was feeling. Her shoulders shook with laughter at the thought of her best friend’s furious face. Diana swore she was going to pop a blood vessel.
The laughs quickly dissolved into shaking, hiccupping sobs. Everything ached as she poured her heart and soul into the tears. No matter how hard she tried to reign them in they refused to listen and just kept coming.
Through all of this Victoria stayed silent. No false words of comfort, no reassurances that everything would be ok. Victoria wouldn’t be another person in a long line of people to lie to Diana about how she should be feeling. Especially since it’s coming from her of all people. So Victoria sipped the disgusting cheap beer and let Diana cry.
After a couple of long, painful minutes Diana’s sobs finally ebbed. She peaked her head up to look at Victoria for the first time tonight. She kept her face towards the horizon but Diana could tell she was checking up on her from her peripheral. Though Victoria was very careful about keeping her masks up, Diana had spent enough time with her to notice the tightness in her eyes that she got when she was worried.
“Why are you doing this?” Diana croaked, her throat sore. Victoria finally met her gaze head-on. Diana’s face was covered in tears and snot. The tears that still hadn’t stopped, froze on her sickly pale cheeks before they could drip onto the ground. Her bags were so deep at first glance you might think she had gotten into a fight.
Victoria couldn’t look. She turned her gave back to the city and took a long drink. Hoping that it would keep her voice steady.
“Drinking isn’t nearly as fun when you’re alone.”
(I really hope this makes sense from an outsiders perspective. I don’t think that you need a lot of context for what's going on and you can just kinda fill in the blanks ya know? But also, all of this makes perfect sense to me since it’s in my head so-)
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