eating flowers

//08

the boy arrived solemnly at the funeral, dressed in his best black suit.

he didn't cry. he didn't speak.he just sat there, staring at the casket before him.

and the people he didn't care about lined up to say their apologies. they said they were so sorry for his loss, but the boy felt like those people didn't really care. they were just fulfilling their duties.

and the preacher opened the casket for the last time, and ryland walked up slowly, his letter of goodbye in his hand. he slipped the piece of paper discreetly in the cask, and looked at the person inside of it.

"are you scared that you'll be living without him?" his mother murmured.

"fucking terrified." he responded.

and he was.

he was terrified.

✽

when the boy came home from the funeral, he ran to his room. it was his temporary safe heaven. 

the boy sat down at his desk, and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil. the boy enjoyed writing. he enjoyed it because he could let his words flow, let his emotions seep out.

so ryland sat down, and decided to write down his dead brother’s story. he wanted to let his words portray how his brother must have felt. he wanted everyone to know what his brother was going through. he wanted to experience what his brother was going through first hand, because he felt as if he owed it to him. ryland figured the closest thing to experiencing it, would be writing as if he were living through it. so ryland let the words tingle through his fingertips, as he painted his brother's story.

“when he typed in the familiar keys, the familiar letters that fit into the tiny slots allowed, he braced himself for terrible words to come flying through the screen, and wrap their fingers around his neck. he braced himself for their words, black and slippery, that somehow would leak like a poison into his skin, soaking into him to forever leave it's inky mark.

those words showed all over his body, but they took on a different shape. those words, after imprinting on his skin, turned into the steely, cold, metal blade the boy held. those words, they turned into jagged lines and red splotches, seeping through the boys skin. and after some time, those words were visible to everyone who could see, because those words were deep scars, running along his body.

those words clung to him, tightly, sucking all the air out of him, while he was clawing at the letters to let him breathe. he was sinking under, the words piling on top of him in every direction. they wriggled themselves into the boys head, so when he tried to turn the lights of to go to bed, they would haunt him like a ghost that whispers memories. and he would toss and turn, and try to convince himself to forget the neatly typed letters, to forget all about them, because they meant nothing. all those letters were just in his head, but did that make them any less real? and when the boy could no longer breathe, and their words were crushing him, he decided to try to take a walk to a happier place.

and his ghost passed on his message, to everyone around him.

words don't hurt.

they kill. “

and after ryland finished writing about taylor, he sobbed all the tears he hadn't cried. taylor was gone, because of those words. and there was no way ryland could fix it. 

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I won't do lots of author's notes, because they ruin the story (in my opinion), but this chapter is dedicated to @authorninja for the lovely cover she made me on the side.