"I loved you," I snap, meeting her broken gaze from across the table.
"Then why didn't you hold me like that?" She begs.
"You never told me. I tried my best to make you feel loved. I gave you everything I had," my voice is barely audible, "I didn't know you felt like that." I lowered my gaze to my water, tracing swirls in the frosted glass. Even as I say the words, I know it is a lie.
"How did you not know?! You should always hold you lover. Really hold them. Not only when you're taking a break from your more important activities. When you kiss your lover, the world stops turning for the duration of that kiss. You never gave me that," her voice grew steadily louder.
"I thought you would leave anyways. I didn't think I could make you stay. I thought it didn't matter" I say, defeated. She reaches over and clings to my hands.
"But it does," she whispers with a finallity that makes my heart break.
Flashback to the night of the accident-
I sat behind the wheel of my challenger, my foot pressed against the gas- full speed towards the place where she threatened to end her life. The rumble of the tires against the dirt road filled my ears as I drove closer to the sight at the back road. She'll go ahead and do it if she hears the car, I thought to myself. I pulled off several hundred yards from where I knew she would be.
The evening cloaked me in the darkness of ever dimming night. I hurried to a brisk walk down the abandoned road, pushing myself to move more quickly. My breath came in short gasps at the rising fear and panic in my chest. I won't make it. She'll be dead by the time I get there. I pushed myself to a run, my feet crunching on the gravel. A figure came into view, a sillouette of a girl laying in the grass. Two silloutes. I slowed my pace to a slow walk, keeping enough distance between us to where I remained undetected. I crouched in the grass by the side of the road, curious as to what she was doing. It had to be her. A moan traveled from where they were laying. No. No. She wouldn't. This is not the girl I love. This is not my Belle. Even as the thoughts flooded my mind, I knew it was another lie in an attempt to console myself. Another moan traveled from where they lay. Betrayal consumed my soul in a bout of fury. I rose from my position in the grass, intending to drive past with little consequence. My pulse quickened with every step in the direction of my Challenger. My limbs were made of lead. Swimming in a thick puddle of nothingness. At last, I slid into the front seat. My hands gripped the wheel in a death grip. Instead of flooring it the way I planned, I switched the radio on. If You Can't Hang, by Sleeping With Sirens blasted through my car. I waited until the song was over and several minutes (maybe hours?) had passed. Blood pounded in my ears as I shifted the car into drive. You fraud. I stepped on the gas with the intention of escaping that wretched scene. The roar of the engine shook the night to life. I floored it. The cas going faster than I had planned. But I didn't care. Drive past, they'll know you saw. Before I could stop, a silloutte drew closer and closer, it didn't register to me that this was a person that I should avoid until the CRACK against the windshield woke me from my trance. The windshield spider webbed from the center where blood trickled down across the glass.
The remainder of the night was a blur in my memory. The fumbling of my cell phone in my hands. 911. The wail of sirens in the night. I crouched over Belle, fully clothed. There were cuts covering her body, self inflicted and otherwise from the accident. Her legs were twisted at odd angles. She didn't deserve this. No one deserves this. There were jagged slashes across her cheeks, almost down to the bone. Her face was a mess of torn flesh and blood.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered as a tear trickled down my cheek, like the blood trickling down my windshield. A voice broke through my dazed state.
"What did you do?"
"What the hell did you do?"
It was the girl. Brooke.
"I- I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry," I stammered.
The siren drew nearer until the colors seeped through the trees around us. In my ears, the sirens were a wail for help. I recall being dragged away from her body, barely alive. Hands gripped my arms forcibly pulling me away. I had almost killed her.
"Are you sober?" A deep voice escaped a cop. He was a younger man with only a shadow of a beard to suggest his age.
"Yes, sir," I managed, "I want to ride in the ambulance with her." I didn't know why I wanted to, but I had to be with her.
I stood over her broken body hooked up to about a dozen machines. The only sign of life was the faint beep beep beep of the heart monitor. An oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth, giving her life. Her blue hair fanned out around her face. Her eyes were closed, long lashes almost touched her cheeks; which were pale and bandaged. I reached out to touch her arm, when her eyes flicked open. Pain. That's the only word I know to describe the expression behind her eyes. She was in terrible pain.
Flashback ends-
"Luna?" Her voice snaps me back into reality.
"W-what?"
"Are you okay? You're tearing up," she says quietly. Her hand carresses my face in a gesture like she knows what that I was reliving that night. She pulls her hand away, showing me a small drop of water on her thumb.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, reaching a hand towards her face, tracing the scars that permanantly mark her. She leans into my touch.
Author's note~ Hope the backstory helped clear things up. Comments, suggestions are welcome. We'd appreciate any feedback (hopefully positive) (:
YOU ARE READING
Flesh.
Romance"Why didn't you stop?" The scars engraved in her face, features as prominent as her eyes and nose, blame me for their existence. She was the nightmare that plagued my dreams for months now -- a manifestation of my greatest mistake. I can't escape he...
