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CHAPTER NINETEEN ( Baby, You're No Good For Me )
HEARTBEATS TELL A story. Just like the unyielding rhythm steadily thumping through one's chest, rushing through the bloodstream, and aching a shock of life to a body, it tells a story.
Jaehwa thinks that perhaps hers is of a stagnant state, never truly heard through the enactment of a false being residing in her carcass of a soul.
( It is unbearably still, a dull tha-thump that rings through the silent air every few minutes. A reminder that she is there but certainly not alive ).
She sits awake, listening to the empty melody through her ears, feeling the cold envelop her senses and dig deeper into her pillow, as though her heart is lying there, allowing itself to be heard.
Tha-thump. Silence. Tha-thump. Silence.
A never-ending struggle between the creeping chill of a worn body and its still bleeding warmth, a tug of war between life and death.
Jaehwa rattles out a hollow breath, frowning through the flutter of her eyelids even beneath the permeating dark abyss.
Sleep does not beckon in the way it has so vehemently done before, yearning to hold Jaehwa in a fetal position as her heartbeat settles into a faint reconnection to its deadened state. She cannot sleep.
The blankets and thick duvets that shroud her shivering body feel like thin sheets of straw and paper against her frame, little warmth exuding from their shields.
Jaehwa turns her body to the other side in an attempt to reposition herself comfortably, ignoring the jutting ache in her hip bones as they drag against her mattress only to settle and sink back into place when she puts her knees close to her chest.
Still, sleep does not come.
The young girl opens her eyes with a dull fury, twisting her brow heavily against her smothered skin and messy hair. She brings up a clammy palm to scratch the back of her neck, smoothing out the jumble of old stitches still left. Half of the zigzag pattern has dissolved over the months, leaving behind a razor-thin line that crawls up Jaehwa's neck like a tiny centipede.
The bitter song of the nightingales outside Jaehwa's bedroom window sings softly, a melody once useful for lulling her to sleep, now deterring the act.
She wonders whether she is the only soul awake at that very moment, because she feels so very alone in the growing silence.
Soft muffled snores ring in her ears just after the thoughts come to her mind, and Jaehwa knows that her father is just a thin wall away, peacefully dreaming, alive. She knows her mother is right by his side, using his large frame as her own personal heater.
