The Line Between You And I

Elizabeth

It didn't get any easier. My lungs began contracting and relaxing at a fast pace, trying to scavenge any remaining air they could just about grasp. My vocal cords had been squeezed back into their box and tried to escape before the box lid shut. My throat was burning trying to release itself from my father's clammy hands. My eyes grew tired and droopy with each short blink. I felt my face grow pale, but that wasn't the shocking thing. Shockingly, my father's face seemed to go from pure anger to disgust and confusion, the realization slowly hitting him like a bitch slap right across the face. After what felt like hours, something big whipped around his head and within a minute, there was blood scattered all over my balcony. Everything was bloody. The chalk-white snow was now dyed a scarlet red colour; my father's complexion was now coated in a deep claret liquid, the spiritless stone railing was now splashed in a vermilion and my mother's attire was once an amber colour now soaked in a cardinal. Almost like she had splashed wine on it... I couldn't stand next to her. I couldn't dare to even be close to her. With every sharp, inhale and shaky exhale, I took a step back each time not realizing how close I even got to the edge. That's when I fell...

One thing leads to another, and I felt myself falling yet looking up towards the sky and its natural beauty. It looked like an ocean engulfed our world, light hues of blue, and white sea foam floating through it, and its winged creatures swimming effortlessly. I felt something burning from deep inside. It wasn't the morbid heat I couldn't stand, but rather the smoke that curled and crowded against my lungs, slowly suffocating me until my vision went dark...

I felt my eyes being pried open by none other than Max. When I was finally out of my trance, I placed my hand to line up with the burning feeling on my back only to see it on my hand. The velvet river poured away from its source, meandering effortlessly as it carried away any hope of survival, staining all it touched with unthinkable pain. The simple, red gashes also formed on my arms as though they had been painted, and the anchor of mankind poured from them as though it were no more than a watercolor. I felt a metallic taste filled my mouth, sitting on my taste buds. I didn't want to be like this, I couldn't. Before I had the chance to speak, I felt it consume me. When I grasped for my last breath of air, warm-ruby-coloured liquid flooded in; my throat burned as if a thousand needles had been plunged into it. With that, my world went black...

I woke up in my cold bed. Everything that my father had touched felt cold, rather dead-like to me. Pain wrapped its white-hot fingers around my throat, chocking away the last remnants of good memories of my father. The world was quiet and dull. The world seemed like an empty truth rather than a meaningful lie. I felt blackmailed. This house was supposed to tell the story of me and Victoria growing up or rather my mother and father falling in love but now, now all it told was the story of an alcoholic. A drunken, scary monster of a man. Who shouldn't have a family as loving as ours and yet still does? A manipulative malicious bitch who didn't deserve his money nor fame or profession. I won't lie my father still having power scares me in millions of ways I never imagined possible as a little girl.

Although the world felt like a cruel deep void, there was still some light coming through the curtains. I felt his loving arms protectively wrapped around me, enclosing me from this monstrosity of a world. I felt his warm breath on my throat as his head was buried into my neck. I picked his heavy hands off my body and slightly shuffled out of bed, careful to not wake him up. I sat on the end of the bed and just let the morning take me away. Suddenly, he let out a groan and his eyes flickered open.

"Hey. You okay?"

The things I'd do to play that raspy morning voice in my head over and over. He began to sit up against the head of the bed as I said,

"I'm okay, better now I have a close friend here." I felt a faint smile fall upon my lips, 'close friend'. The sweet-sounding words flew around my head for minutes more.

His hair was messy and I couldn't help but try and fix it so I lent in my hand just about reaching the toned ends of his hair. Are faces were a few centimeters away from each other and I could feel his gaze not leaving my eyes.

Within a second his big hands cupped the side of my face as he pulled me in for a deep, loving kiss.

The things I'd do to fall in love all over again...