taping eggshells

four\ down the rabbit hole

Four\ down the rabbit hole

            Flynn loved trains.

When we were younger, Flynn always took the lead and brought us to the abandoned tracks on the side of town no one cared about. We would walk for hours, balancing on the delicate ledge of either side. Trains no longer went to where we were but Flynn always patiently looked ahead, anticipating what could come just around the bend, beyond the foliage of wild trees. He must have thought, really believed, that if he looked hard enough, looked long enough, a train would come.

Then it could finally take both of us far far away.

 

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I tend to be attracted to wounded things.

Be it the stray cats on the streets or the poor pigeons in the parks, I always felt myself drawn to them like moths to a fire. Jay said it's because I've lived too happy of a life that I always seemed to want to seek out the more fucked up things. I don't accept what he said but I also can't find myself denying it. I grew up loved and Jay knows that better than anyone, especially since he didn't. Jay's parents were always fighting with one another, caring more about how to break the other one down than about Jay's happiness. Yet they didn't want to divorce so he was stuck living with that while I lived my beautiful life—full of happiness, love, and surprisingly good grades.

Jay was probably right about my attraction to Coan too.

He said I was in love with the boy who had stories to tell, who had touched the darkness and lingered for too long, forgetting how to get out.

I still remember that night clearly, the night we first kissed.

There was something in his eyes, the way his soul looked beyond the green and the brown of his iris in the dim moonlight. It might have been silly thinking I could look into his soul and see it. But looking at Coan then, at that moment, in that place where I felt safe and protected, I thought I could see the rawness of it all.

He didn't hold any of it back, not the pain or the hallowed out way he was on the inside. He merely looked back at me, straight into my eyes and I wondered if he could see me as well. The real me.

"What do you see?" I whispered, our faces close.

"Beauty." He said with certain sadness.

What was it that was making him sad? The hazel eyes flickered for a moment of hesitation before his hand reached up and touched the corner of my eyebrow, his thumb pressing gently on the crinkles of my eye.

He was expressionless, blank and unreadable as he traced his hands down my cheek to the underside of my earlobe. I shuddered and he paused.

We looked at each other and I leaned forward to let him know it was okay. He could kiss me as much as he wanted, he could touch me as much as he desired. I didn't care if he didn't love me because all I wanted was to feel him, to be closer so that our skin could touch, so that I could crush against the rawness of his soul harder.

I wanted to see what was beyond the darkness, so I kissed him like I never kissed anyone before.

It started out slow, like two people meeting for the first time. It was like an uncertain dance where hands barely touched but each wanting more. And then I threw more of me forward. I wanted to kiss harsher, to feel more of the grazing of his lips, the burning of his touch, the softness of his skin against mine. I wanted to taste all of him, to let him know he was alive, to make him feel alive. I felt him tremble under me and then push back with unguarded need to feel me too.

In the midst of it all I probably thought of Jay for a flicker of a moment.

I thought of that afternoon we buried a dead cat in my backyard, of how hard I cried after rescuing it and then just seeing it there, in my room not moving when I got back from school. We had buried it with our hands because no adults were around and Jay didn't want me to cry anymore.

It had died and Jay made me promise not to take care of any more hurt animals.

I cried and cried but promised Jay.

I motioned to Coan to go to my room where we could be alone and took his warm hand. His hand was large and his thumb circled the center of my palm, sending fluttering chills up my spine.

I opened the door to my room and looked back, just once, over my shoulder at the empty hallway. I looked back and thought of the promise but I knew I couldn't stop.

So I went inside and closed the door with a soft click, knowing it probably sealed my future. 

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author's note

I wish i could express to you guys how much i love the characters in this story. It feels like i'm creating people i dont want to ever finish writing about. But since i do and i want to tell the story fully, the chapters will go on!

hopefully you guys liked the chapter as much as i liked writing it. please, please, please leave comments and let me know how it's going. any and all critiques are welcome. 

until next time :)

ps. thank you @lunar- for the beautiful gif banner on the side<333