dear violet ➳ andy biersack (currently editing)

40

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chapter
forty
andy

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I could taste the smoke.

It was acrid and bitter, pungent, burning my mouth and nose.

The glow of the fire turned the room to a hot yellow haze, angry red sparks flying here and there, showering down on me in curtains of burning glitter.

"Violet!" My voice came out hoarse, my throat dry as sandpaper, and I doubled over with a sudden fit of caughs.

The smoke was in my lungs. I could feel it, making my chest ache, my head pound. Every inch of my body craved clean air, fresh oxygen.

I stumbled my way through the living room as the curtains bloomed into flame, the walls blackened and the windows cracked from the searing heat.

And then. A glimmer of silver, a slash of pure white.

I lunged forward around a splintering chair to find her. Trapped beneath the heavy oak dining room table, her legs pinned down beneath a mound of char black crumbling wood.

There was a deep magenta gash across her forehead, and her skin was stained black with soot, her tears cleaning white tracks across her cheeks. Her eyes were bloodshot, her lips cracked and split from the overpowering heat.

Her snow white hair was fanned out around her head in a pale halo, and it was her hair that I had seen moments ago.

She was white as december.

I collapsed to my knees, feeling everything inside me falter. My heart trip a beat, my brain stammer, my lungs choke on nothing.

Then she stirred, and my body remembered how to work again.

I reached out to shape my hands to her face, to rub the tears away from beneath her eyes.

My throat was closed up.

"Andy," she whispered. She smiled at me, smiled, despite the utter horror of the situation we'd found ourselves caught in like two moths in a closed fist. Smiled despite the glowing red cinders peppering our clothes, smiled despite the heavy oak table crushing her legs, smiled despite the fact that the world was on fire. 

And god, wasn't her smile beautiful.

"Andy, I love you," she managed through wounded lips.

And I felt a glow ignite itself deep in my core, felt jasmines sprout inbetween my ribs.

"I love you too, Violet. I love you too."

And I leaned in to kiss her despite the heat and our chapped lips, and her kiss still tasted as warm and inviting as the very first time.

We broke apart, and I could see the flames reflected in her eyes like savagely blooming flowers, red as love through the soil of our world.

"I'm going to save us," I told her, listening to my voice rasp against the smoke. "I'm going to save us both."

And I threw my shoulder into the table as hard as I could, trying to force it off her legs. To no avail. The wood was tough as diamond, heavy as liquid cement.

But I had to save us.

We were not going to die this way.

"Andy," Violet croaked.