We all got bruises (FT AU)

Scarlet and the Scars

As Levy prepared for bed, she thought about possible ways to write the poem. Would it rhyme, or would it be more free form? What types of figurative language would she used? Standing in front of the mirror in her bathroom, she washed her face and brushed her teeth while thinking up a way to carry a story throughout the poem without making it to lengthy and droning.

As she put down her tooth brush in it's proper holder, she made sure to check the scars on her arms and wrists to make certain they were fading. She was pleased to see that the scars had faded some from the beginning of the year.

She remembered how it was in this very bathroom that she had woken from a nightmare that shook her so hard, Levy wanted the pain to go away by taking a razor and digging it into her arm and cutting it like an unskinned potato. The day she had hit rock bottom.

She shut her eyes tight and sucked in a breath of post shower air, warm and damp on her senses. After a moment, she opened her eyes and smiled at her reflection. Luckily, Jellal and Erza heard her frantic and sobbing, and stopped her from doing further harm. They rushed her to the hospital in a blur of fuzzy red agony, and most of her stay was a huge blank. She was thankful she didn't remember most of it.

But pulling up to school in Jellal's blue Mazda with a bandage running up her arm called some attention from her friends. She told them it was the darn stairs, but they didn't buy one second of her story because stairs don't put people on suicide watch.

But now, looking in her grinning face in the reflective wall piece, Levy came a long way from cuts and depression. Turing off the light, she walked down the hall to her room. It was a good sized room with books scattered and strewn on her desk, dresser, bed, and floor. Pencils littered her desk varying in color and size with pictures of different objects and people tossed in a lazy pile. Her bed had a nice blue comforter with a bed side table showing off her latest book selection and alarm clock. It also had a picture of Levy with Erza and Lucy on her sixteenth birthday. Rather having a big party, she opted to go on a girl's day out.

Levy yawned and flashed a smile at the picture. She jumped on her bed and grabbed a near by note pad off the floor and began writing down ideas to put in the poem. As she did, she recalled all the events that led to her sitting there today.

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New York City, New York State. December 31th, 1999.

A three year old Levy was sporting a brown coat and black Mary Jane's while hold tight to her mother's hand. Her mother was a short bluenette with a black waist coat and jeans. The mother's boots crunched as she paced anxiously on the sidewalk of the New York Police Station. Levy had no idea why her mother was acting so... what was the word mommy used again? Right! Nervous! Why was mommy so nervous?

A car raced past them, spraying the pair's feet in gray and mucky slush. The woman said a word that Levy knew she would get her tongue ripped out through her teeth for saying. But Levy didn't comment, just shifting and shivering at the new sensation of wet and cold mixed together. The girl hated that feeling.

Her mother noticed and tried to smile brightly at the girl, telling her over the noise of the cars "Don't fret, it won't be long until the meetings over now love." Levy giggled at her mother's funny accent. Her father told her she was British and her accent is was one of the first things her loved about her. 

The doors of the station opened and a rather tall man with mousy brown hair walked out and over to the pair of shivering females. When the woman saw the man, he smiled and embraced her while kissing her forehead. Levy puffed out her cheeks in embarrassment at the show of affection. The couple pulled away and chuckled at the girl's reaction.