Antilove

Trentuno

CAPITOLO TRENTUNO

city of and under stars

***

THE FIRST TIME Rose's veins saw the stars and her skin felt electricity, she was fifteen. Fifteen was not the youngest but Rose was certainly green enough as a canvas. At that point in her life, if she had known that every First would tag along until her Last, Rose would have taken precautions.

    It's hard to annotate a compressed lifeline but Rose tries—pinpointing parts of her life where there were inflections: up and down, never around.

    Contrary to popular belief (this is not unique to Rose but to every other girl out there), the first thorn embedded into her heart came from her mother, not a boy. The boy would come many many many fractures later.

    These embellishments to the walls of her heart are, to Rose, trivial.

    It's just history, she'd say. If anything, history is always two lessons too late.

    Yet Rose never wanted any teaching from her past self—every time she chose with impulse and half a pint of blood.

    So the second time Rose's eyes filled to the brink from manmade wonder, she saw where she strayed. Tears replace wonder and she sobs into the shoulder of the third man that stained her cathedral—third times the charm isn't it?—her cathedral meaning her faith—her faith meaning belief and general honesty towards the world.

    "Why are you sad?" he asks softly into her hair, hand smoothing calm rhythms into her blouse. His voice implied no urgency and demanded no response.

    She doesn't reply, burrowing herself deeper into his touch—a kind less physical than just bodies. "Are we almost there?"

    "We're pulling up. You can see the jet from here."

    "And the sunset?"

    "You can see that too."

    "I'm more than just sad." Rose lifts her eyes to peek the muted orange flashing against the car seat, wondering if light is actually as warm as it looks. "I'm tired."

    Lucien hums, hands braiding her hair lackadaisically. "I think we've had this talk before, Rose."

    "I know."

    "Evaluate your guilt. Can you learn from it?"

    She nods.

    "And is it justifiable?"

    Another.

    "Then you're already on your way. If people don't forgive you, you've already done your best. If you've already said and done your sorry, then you need to move on. I don't know your heart well enough to tell you anything about yourself but I think you're getting there."

    "I don't have a whole life to repent. What a bad time to come to my senses."

    Instead of replying, Lucien presses his mouth to her neck but Rose pulls away and off. Laying her head across his lap, she sighs.

    "Forgive me," she says. "I'm not myself. I have never been but forgive me."

    "This talk is scaring me," he whispers, fingers trailing her cheekbone.

    "Just an explanation." Her head's been in a terrifyingly, dramatic sort of state these past weeks as she lives in it, into and about.

    Could there be change at twenty-five? Could there be at all? Are we not just byproducts of our set-in-stone nature?