Mess You Made

31.*

Miguel.

Malibu's quiet as fuck. I don't exactly know why but something feels wrong in a way I can't place. I've seen her quiet before but there's a palpable change to her. Can feel it. See it on her. An emptiness.

And I've seen it before a couple times but it's usually quickly masked over with some sort of argument, or any form of frustration. When I found her that night she hooked up with Cal, same night she drunk herself sick, far away from home. There was the same strange detachment to her eyes then that you can only notice if you really look.

Like a layer of ice before she incites some sort of inferno as if the emptiness still isn't there, as if there wasn't a blankness there at all in the beginning. But there is. A vacantness. I've seen it enough times to know for certain it exists.

She's sat around the island since I managed to convince her not to immediately run away home after she showered. Right next to me, close enough that our legs are touching. All her hair's curled up on her shoulders, still wet and she's bouncing her little sister on her leg. Lightly pushing around the omelette on her plate as if I'm not noticing, eyes down on her plate.

There are so many people around. Benji and Everest are around the island too, and they're as joyous as usual and she's tense. Silent. Not really engaging with anyone except for her little sister because I'm certain she feels out of place here. Anywhere, because it's her, and her family against the world, and as Sierra Lane indicated to me once, the Adams seem to have tragedy attached to their skin.

And it's so much more noticeable when there are people around her so content, so much more noticeable when I just take a second to look — that she's the opposite. That even if she attempted to sit here and fake it, I don't think she could.

The human body is meant to feel emotion. Pain, hurt, anger, joy, misery. They can all be destructive in their own right but they're indicators of a breathing, working mind, right? It's only when the body has too much to bear that it goes numb. Goes quietly. Numbness, emptiness, that's the worst of it all, that's the thing that takes a person. That's when you lose them. To be numbed is to be gone.

The world around Malibu is moving, and she seems still. Stuck. She doesn't belong to it and she doesn't care to.

"Would you like some more?"

It takes Malibu a moment to realise Violet's talking to her. She lifts her gaze from her plate, looks over at Violet across the island.

She looks as much of a princess as she usually does except it's maybe a bit heightened because she's heading to a country club or something with her older brothers and her baby niece. Entirely Miu Miu, matching stripe trim cashmere cropped top and the matching tennis skirt. If I didn't know her, I'd deem her the perfect picture of generational wealth. Especially with all her light hair gathered into a flawless ponytail.

Malibu just stares over at her. Her long lashes flutter as she blinks a couple times, pulling herself out of her haze.

I think she's unsettled by Violet but she's also the only person here that she hasn't completely been mean to. Hasn't said a lot to her but the words she have said have been flat — not hostile. Which is something?

I can't place why and I suppose that may be the fabric of Violet Amory. She's too delicate for you to want to break her. Or Malibu's getting tireder, more tired than she already keeps attempting to conceal, and if she's too tired to piss someone off, then that makes me nervous, too.

I look over to the lounge where Luca is. Him and Ria are kept to themselves as they always are. Her on his lap, and his chin comfortably tucked into her shoulder from behind and she's trailing her fingers over his tattooed arm. She calms him. He always has a safe place to go to, despite anything. Her.