The stag hunt with the scarlet heart

Chapter 10 "Did this determine my life?"

Saffron at university

"There are four pillars of destiny. The day, the hour, the month, and the year we are born, which are used to predict someone's future." Ryan blurted it out with an air of wisdom, but it was the drunk and crazy kind, the kind that serves to impress people, but it struck a chord with me.

Did this determine my life? Does this condemn me to events that will forever mark me? Or do we just put a name to what we can't control, to the actions of others, or to how our history is triggered? I knew there was a pain in my eyes, I knew I was clinging so much to him, to my him, that it only made me a survivor and maybe one day I will become the villain.

I became numb in my body, my legs felt like limbs attached to my body, I could move them, but I didn't feel like they belonged to me. My head was a whirlwind of thoughts. I could fall any moment, I knew it. At that moment I realized that someone was holding my waist and made me turn around and face him, the boy in front of me moved and I remembered his nickname.

Mr. Rattle.

He said his name after we took a break from dancing, but when his body somehow stuck to mine on the dance floor, despite the sound of the music. I could hear the jingle of the keys against the leather belt that did shit for keeping the pants on his waist.

My mind immediately named him Mr. Rattle, but my body reacted to his scent, to his hands on my waist that kept me glued to him until he decided he wanted to see my face and turned me around in a spin, my hips still moving, I put my mind on automatic and let myself be carried away by his lips and his hands that brought back memories of Atlas that I clung to with claws. I sank my teeth into his neck, imagining that it was the neck of the black-haired man from my past.

I remember him whispering "Atlas" as he kissed my neck, biting me in the wrong place, but it didn't matter, I kept digging my nails into his biceps, knowing that the illusion would fade, that the Atlas in my mind would disappear.

It didn't matter when he took me to the bar and ordered a cup of jet fuel, or how it felt when it went down my throat until it dropped like a bullet in my stomach, it still didn't matter. It didn't matter because now I was addicted to the memory of Atlas.

For a second I looked around, I looked at my life. I was in college, I was only nineteen, and I felt like my life didn't matter, my eyes were fixed on Autumn swallowing a guy's face and Ryan doing the Hangdog move on the track. I tried to see us through Atlas' eyes, and disappointment filled me. All three of us were drunk, we needed liquid courage. I knew it. We each had our way of getting over things.

I looked away, closing my eyes for a moment, trying to see Atlas, but I couldn't, so I picked up the battery acid again, took the guy's hand, and led us to the dance floor. I danced as hard as I could, trying to forget or make Atlas come back, I just pushed myself so hard. I was so close, I knew it. As much as my body craved the feeling of excitement, my legs now felt weak.

Then sobriety knocked on the door in my head as Mr. Rattlesnake was forcing his fingers down my sternum in an attempt to force my body to follow his movements, I felt his hands where others much more aggressive touched, his lips were no longer covered by his two-day-old beard, suddenly lips that were no longer his were forcing mine, biting and pinching my flesh, a scream caught in my throat, I saw the rims of my eyes red and felt paralyzed, surrounded by three bodies, consuming the oxygen around me, touching my flesh as if it were full of scars like a collection meant to be proof that I am paying for the sins I have committed.

They look at me.

The three of them touch me.

Until I wriggle my hands away, pinching my flesh. Mr. Rattlesnake releases my waist reminding me of their presence, he looks at me in fright, just as I sit up and run from there, off the dance floor, crashing body to body until at last I reach the outside of an alley and am buffeted by the dyed city air.

I lean against the brick, a few feet away people smoking, as I walk away trying to forget the feeling, but suddenly footsteps, too loud, too familiar.

He's here. Atlas.

He's a few feet away from me, but the streetlights illuminate his face, it's contorted, and for the first time, I see a grimace I never thought I'd see. He's disappointed. Like me. I close my eyes.

I know it's an illusion.

It's my mind playing tricks on me as it so often did, but it feels as real as it did a second ago, I can feel it to the core. I force myself to move towards him. My mind tricks me by letting me hear the sound of his boots on the asphalt. Beside us, I hear music and life. But I feel death waving in front of me.

I know it's a lie.

How do I tell my heart that this will go away when the alcohol does? I know it won't listen. My heart is like a rabid animal right now, hungry and desperate.

Atlas' illusion tried to get closer, but he raised my hand, and I told him to stop. "Don't, please..." My whisper came out as a desperate cry.

I know it's confusing. I'm telling my own mind to stop, but I can't stand his touch and I can't feel anything. I feel my body contort into a grimace of pain. And his body in sadness. My insides twist.

Atlas looks much taller than in my memories, much broader. His jaw is sharper. He has the stubble he hated to grow. Leather covers his body. My mind designed him, imagined him.

"You can do better than this, Bucky." His voice is as thick and vibrant as my shame. But suddenly his face changes. "You have to try harder. You have to hide the things you're afraid of, but you don't have to act like you've arrived, as if you feel safe."

"I'm afraid of being broken... I'm afraid I'll love you forever, and I'll never see you again."

"I was infatuated with you; I still am. No one has ever awakened in me such an acute capacity for physical sensation, I will never let go of you, but remember that before you gave me your body, you gave me your thoughts, your mind, your dreams. And I had none of those before I met you. I love you, Bucky and as inadequate and broken as I am, I hope you never stop loving me."

Tears stream down my cheeks, I know his face is flushed as I lowered mine, looking at my legs sheathed in tall black boots, I focus on it with my eyes closed.

"Saffron, we're leaving!" Ryan opens the crazy door, in all his ethylic haze he looks at me and I crack my head between answers.

Then the sound of boots, and I looked up to find the street empty.

Disappeared. Vanished.