Sleep Magazine (Completed)

The Scandal: 2

Ava eyed her sister in the mirror to thoroughly inspect her appearance for the first time that afternoon. Grace looked like something Ava could only identify as sad, but in the most repelling way. Any pity evoked by the flattened expression of her lips was overshadowed by the rigidness in her jaw set atop her stiff neck, her eyes, looking down, too heavily lidded to construe. She held the bottle of body oil as if it were heavy, spreading the oil up and down her limbs mechanically as if they were steel. 

More than distressed, she appeared simply afflicted; shrouded in a bleak air she had comfortably succumbed to, withdrawn enough inside of it to induce more disgust than sympathy. Yet something about the scene called upon some affinity within Ava, and she went to the corner of her room to fish through the top drawer of a very old, scratched up dresser.

"Catch," she called out as she tossed the small bottle of nail polish in an arc across the room.

Grace caught it with two hands and turned a bit red when the bottle made a loud clanking sound against her ring.

"Should be pretty close," said Ava, sweeter than before. Grace looked approvingly at the color in the bottle and shook it aggressively before twisting it open.

Celia sat up and watched her younger sister apply lip gloss in the mirror, admiring the outfit she was wearing, and silently debated whether or not to compliment her out loud.

"Are you coming with us to Stephen's?" she asked instead.

"Nope, wasn't invited," Ava replied shortly. Grace sighed loudly a second time.

"I'm inviting you now," said Celia nonchalantly. She ran her eyes over the back of Ava's head and noted the unevenness of her braids.

"Melanie's having a party," Ava said quietly, well aware of the reaction it would cause. She kept her eyes on her reflection and instantly wished she had lied about where she was going. 

A beam of sunlight, escaped during a reprieve in the overcast sky, shone through the window behind her and glinted across the mirror, flashing an iridescent rainbow across the bridge of her nose. For the moment it existed, Celia studied the light curiously; its illumination obvious yet natural in the way it balanced Ava's face, washing a layer of sanguinity over her hostile disposition. 

And just as quickly as the light kissed its reflection was its glow extinguished by the implacable clouds.

"Oh that's just great," remarked Grace. "Is Dave still living there?" An image of big white teeth flashed in her mind before she shook her head slightly, shutting out the faint whispers that began again to seep out from the steam behind her ears.

"Not sure."

"What do you mean not sure? Weren't you just over there two nights ago?"

"He goes back and forth," Ava paused to wipe the excess lip liner from the corner of her mouth, "between home and Worcester. I don't know if he'll be there tonight or not." She rolled her lips together and parted them with a purposely obnoxious popping sound several times in a row to avoid furthering the conversation.

Grace fought the urge to pry Ava for more details only for a few moments; the steam, unrelenting, emboldened by the cold to prove its ability to overtake it, succeeded in enveloping Grace's body in a final appeal to her proclivity. 

Tu as assez chaud, Cerise? Against her better judgement, she spoke.

"Don't get arrested." Grace kept her disposition serious but averted her eyes back down to her freshly-painted toes as she said it. She knew the warning was cliché and would consequently have little effect on Ava's behavior or, even worse, might only provoke her to act out more in some defiant, vindictive spectacle.

Ava's eyes darted up to make contact with her sister in the mirror. "Why the hell would I get arrested?" she asked defensively, screwing the tube of lip gloss shut.

"If Dave's around and has people over, cops will be there, trust me." Grace answered in a neutral tone as to not escalate the discussion.

Ava allowed her mouth to curl into a very subtle smirk, just prominent enough to be detected in the mirror from Grace's distance. 

"Did Michael ever get arrested there?" She already knew exactly how her older sister would respond to the question and felt satisfied at how stupid she would inevitably feel having to answer it.

"No. Dave wasn't as bad when Michael used to hang out with him."

Ava turned from the mirror and exchanged wide eyes with Celia, who kept her lips flat in an attempt not to giggle.

"Yeah, sure," Ava muttered. She pulled the latch up on the door gently and stepped out of her room.

She heard her sisters' hushed voices grow quieter as she walked down to the end of the hallway, able to make out only a few words of their brief conversation over the squeaking of the wood floors. Pressing her forearm against the busy patterned wallpaper of tiny blue and red floral bouquets, she made an effort to soften her steps so that they would not hear how slowly she was walking. 

The words 'young', 'trouble' and 'Matty' stood out to her against a predictable cadence of Grace sounding concerned and Celia dismissing her with an apathetic tone. 

In ten seconds she had reached the door to her brother's bedroom and she took another ten seconds to lift the latch slowly enough not to make a sound. The room was unbearably cold, as it was the only room in the house heated by electric baseboards that remained shut off year round. 

Ava padded across the gray shag rug to the back corner of the room and ducked her head under the slanted wall of the gable. She tugged at the edge of the door to a small closet, using her fingertips to pry it, stuck and resistant, away from its frame. The closet was just wide enough to accommodate six or so jackets and sweatshirts hung from an old wooden bar that was carved with lyrics from various Audioslave songs. Ava ran her forefinger over a few of the carved letters before pulling a faded orange sweatshirt off its hanger and returning the closet door to its partially closed position.

She reached her arms through the neck opening, using her wrists to stretch the thick cotton material as wide as she could to place her head through the hole with as little contact to her braids as possible. Once her arms were through the sleeves, she turned to the mirror above the dresser to watch herself roll up the cuffs. She rolled one cuff three times and the other twice, dropped her arms to her sides and twisted her body a bit from side to side, eyeing herself in the mirror to determine which styling option looked better. 

Becoming frustrated at how long it was taking her to decide and beginning to shiver from the cold, she closed her eyes and lifted the front of the sweatshirt up over her nose and inhaled deeply, then snapped her eyes open as she exhaled and let her arms drop down sharply, closely comparing how the material of the oversized sleeves fell back down her arms. 

Forcing herself to make a split decision, she took hold of the shorter cuff and unrolled it back one time to match the other, assuring herself that she liked that side better, though she knew she could not actually make up her mind. She walked confidently to the bedroom door and closed it just as slowly as she had opened it to once again avoid the clanking of the iron latch. She then crossed the gray rug to the opposite end of the bedroom and exited through a doorless frame that led into a small, dated, non-functioning bathroom and out to an unfinished landing to a narrow back staircase. 

She descended the stairs with her eyes half closed to prevent herself from looking directly at the dozens of small black spiders curled in the thick webs above her head, and went out the back door of the house without telling her sisters goodbye.