Ink Stained Soul

Fault Lines

(**Inspiration kind of: Monsters by Timeflies Tuesday also picture credit)

Blood smeared like lipstick across the back of her hand. Iridescent lights shimmer off the remains of a mirror lying next to her on linoleum tiles. Tracing tiles, she sobbed and a funeral scream was wrenched from her body. It wasn't a glace or a reflection off shattered glass that finally broker her, but rather the suspension of monotonous beauty, her now inability to conform to societal standards. She was never beautiful in the conventional way, in the way they all said she should be, but now, now a red flowed through a chasm trailing up her cheek, because she finally lost everything and tried to break the thing she despised.

...

    Unique. Beautiful. Freak. Attention whore. Desperate. Freak. Freak. Freak. They pound through her mind, cutting into her shredded memories. She was out of school for five months, but now she's back. Back surrounded by breaking plaster and grime stained floors. Back walking through hallways infested with teenagers oblivious to anyone else's reality. They stare through gaps in their fingers, parts in hair, and over shoulders, stare at the girl who went crazy and scarred her own face for no good reason. Three weeks in and it was still the same. You'd think they'd be used to it by now, but every corner turned, and there they are staring like she's some hideous creature that they've just uncovered for the first time, every time.

    Three weeks was how long it took for everything to change. The girl with the cut face met the boy with the red patterned arms buried deep in a rampart of books in the corner of a hollowed dust-filled library. A neglected sanctuary for two crisscrossed souls hidden beneath the eye of everybody else. They met there daily, never talking, sitting side by side in a silence easier than any they'd ever known. Reading for hours, he never questioned the markings on her face, and she never asked about the patterns painted on his arms.

    One day she sat there and burst into tears. He glanced up at her, moss eyes filled with concern.

    "You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering," his voice was older than she'd imagined it being. "Earnest Hemmingway."

    "You too," her voice crinkled out like the page out of an old book, it was so unused to being used.

    "You wanna talk about it?" she shook her head no. They talked about everything else instead: everything happy, everything sad, his freckle-faced sister, and her older brother, all the nothingness, and infinite, and infinite nothingness. Everything but the things they both desperately longed to avoid and escape. Once they both found a voice, neither one wanted to keep their souls silent any longer. Once they found they could both exist together in a space they previously thought unbearable, they found it far easier to continue existing.

    Until April seventh. April seventh stole away a face full of freckled constellations with a crash of metal that rippled deeply through the hearts of many, and left shrapnel in three souls in particular. One: her mother who no longer got out of bed until afternoon, because what was the point without her youngest there to jump and bounce and shriek and sing her awake? Two: her older brother who'd carefully hidden red marks on his skin from her in order to preserve her innocence; who'd created lie after lie any time she accidentally pulled his sleeves up a little too far. Who drank in an abandoned library, because it was the only place not haunted by her Popsicle smile. Three: the girl who'd fallen in love with a little girl based on so many stories her older brother had fondly reminisced in the mildew silence. Who'd so looked forward to meeting her, because she'd never had a little sister of her own. Who was slowly losing the girl's brother to alcohol and ghostly phantoms dancing demonically through rays of sunlight and guilt-ridden insomniatic nights.

    She found him there one day, the usual pile of books thrown across the room, and a single streak running through the dirt on his face.

    "You're so brave and quiet, but I can never forget you're suffering," she said as he looked up at her. "You're strong enough to survive this."

    "How would you know? You have no idea what I'm going through." His voice a hoarse cry, "Just go away."

    She sighed and sat down next to him, "Do you remember the first day you talked to me?" He nodded hesitantly. "You asked me if I wanted to talk about why I was crying. That was the anniversary of my mom's death."

    "I-."

    "Don't," she shook her head, "just listen to me. This is something I need you to hear. She was murdered a couple years ago now; said she was going out to the store, and that she'd be right back. I waited up in the living room until four a.m. for her to come back. She never did. Someone came and got me in the morning, explained what had happened the best they could, but how do you tell a thirteen year old that they're mom was dead? They didn't know who did it, still don't, but I guess they gave up by now. What're the odds of finding a guy from a drive by, especially after all this time, right?"

    "Camilla, I'm- I'm sorry."   

    "Don't be. I didn't tell you about that, about her, so you'll feel sorry for me; I've had more than enough of that for a while now. I just want you to know that I've already lost someone close to me, and I can't imagine losing you too. So don't you dare leave me," she squeezed his hand.

    "Camilla-,"

    "No, Emmett. Listen to me. I'm here whenever you need me, wherever you need me. We can fight together, as long as you're still here and fighting I don't care. But you can't leave, because if you do, I don't know what I'll do, and I know that's selfish, but just please Emmett. Just promise me you'll stay. Promise me." Tears were racing each other down her face.

    "I'm not that strong."

    "That's why I'm here."

    "Then I guess I'll be here too."