Acylia's Heart

2.

Chapter 2

This memory is a brittle yellow, a pale pallor, with red rims.

She walks into Anne's room only to find her absent. She'd sighed at the mess of dirty clothes and empty vodka bottles that littered the floor, at the dingy darkness of the room. The air was dusty and thick, illuminated only by the candles on Anne's bed side draws. Aria had placed the breakfast she'd brought for her friend down on top of the old chestnut dresser, and had then moved to yank down the large tapestry that worked as a curtain.

It's like she was afraid of being swallowed whole by the sun.

Anne had gone missing for four days just prior to this memory, she remembers. Aria had assumed the disappearance had something to do with Derek - the latest guy Anne had fallen for, who hadn't fallen for her in return.

Anne's story had been entrusted to Aria in snippets over a course of many years. Not in full one starry night as Brian's had, but in little scenes and pictures painted by tear filled exclamations. Hers was one of a mother, who was so broken in herself that she had raised her daughter to walk out into traffic without looking for oncoming vehicles just because the only way for her to feel alive was to find out if Anne was actually dead already.

So she was raised with her fists clenched around her own wrists, just trying to hold onto something, and only finding razors.

And though at around 12 years of age she was finally removed from that women's care and placed in the fostering program - the damage was already done. Now she's constantly searching for this love that she's never had. And it seems to Aria like every other month she is holding Anne's body in her arms and trying to calm her as she asks what happened, what was the cause of these distraught tears, and Anne replies "what always happens, I fell in love, and he didn't".

And Brian will offer her a fag and Harrison will grow angry and she will just silently continue stroking Anne's hair and trying to find the right words when really there aren't any.

Because each one of them litters Anne's walls, him him him, all over her ribs and smashed to smithereens heart that feels like it has seen the world. And she wears them like constant reminders that they didn't love her, no one will love her, that each and every one of them took what was best of her before they left. Just like her mother did.

Aria had only found her, just like they often did, when she had turned up at a hospital having to have her stomach pumped, deep gouges on the insides of her thighs.

In the memory her friend sulks into the room, opening the door just enough to slide by. Aria had frowned as she took in her appearance. Anne's hair was dry and matted, bleached a yellow white with dark brown roots. Dreadlocks in places.

Her eyebrows were shaved to a razor thin line that worked only to give an extra decade to wear away her once jubilant youth. She was much smaller in this memory than others. Her skin a sickly white, her eyes stained red. The black of the jeans she wore was faded and dull, but her chipped nail polish was bright pink with a top coat of glitter.

She didn't notice Aria first, but rather the coffee. Anne had muttered her greeting, her voice so raw that Aria had struggled not to cry at the sound. Her friend simply tilted her head to the side, and let out a deep sigh as she regarded her.

"I'm not as bad as I look, I promise." She'd said, fiddling with her fingers, picking at the nail polish rather than meeting Aria's eyes who was shaking her head; and stray tears had made their escape as she pulled Anne towards her.

"I'm here Annie, I'm always here." She'd whispered and Anne's hands clutched at the small of her back, like she was her only life line. Aria had kissed the side of her head and said "Come on, bath time"

Anne had followed as her as she ran her a bath, slowly sipping at the coffee held within both her hands as she'd sat on the closed toilet lid. Aria had helped her out her clothes that were thick with dirt and vomit and tears and had then worked on brushing out Anne's hair as she swayed the bubbles around slowly with her hand.

"I don't mean to be such a mess A" she had whispered into the soapy water, "Even I'm growing tired of this routine now, I'm forever shattering and falling apart." her hands were shaking.

"I'm here" she had told her friend again and again, because she knew it's what she needed to hear, and that nothing else mattered in that moment "I'm never going anywhere, I will always be here to be your adhesive, to help put you back together" She tried haplessly to rack the comb through the matted hair, but to no avail.

Anne had just laughed, a dull dry kind of laugh "just cut it off" she'd said, reaching across the room to the bathroom cabinet and passing Aria some scissors. "Are you sure?" she'd asked and her friend had nodded, "I need a new start, maybe a new look will help."

Anne had moved to lock her eyes with Aria's then, desperation and an intense seriousness within them, "I look in the mirror and want to cry because I see a monster staring back at me." She'd said, and then turned her back to Aria again abruptly. "Cut it all off."

So she had snipped, brittle yellow locks falling to the white tilled bathroom floor.