Devils and Angels

x. his lips, her lips

c i c a t r i z e

to find healing by the process of forming scars

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I LEARNED THE PACE OF the rain and the malicious hammering with which it fell the way I learned how my heart beat as I stared at each droplet that descended the cool glass of the window, leaving glassy trails in each of their wakes, distorting all that settled in the liquid depths and masking the true sharpness of the afternoon.

All I could seem to focus on was the way my palm pressed into my cheek and the raw red grooves that marred it, and my foot tapping against the carpet below, a pencil balanced in my other hand but staying unused as the scratches of everybody else's grated against my ears. 

Ayden was sat in front of me, and maybe that was why I couldn't find it within myself to concentrate. His name brought others to my lips; my name, Elizabeth's, Archie's. 

All I could think of was staying up until one, maybe two AM in a dimly lit room; messaging each other in the morning with sleep-twisted smiles still on our tired faces; strings of texts, tumults of grey and blue and green, that continued into infinity, until they stopped. Until it all stopped.  

But then my mind would reel with the conversation with Archie, then my own hopeless and wistful misconceptions, and the blaze of anger would overwhelm, savagely devour, all else, and maybe if I were to confront him, face to face, I would let it―because Ayden led us all on; Ayden was a liar, and sure as fuck, he deserved to burn. 

Fuck.

The lesson ended, and I watched the sliver of a chance to talk to him purposefully march away with the back of his receding figure, and maybe for the better too, because one snapshot glance at the window reminded me of the cloudburst in full shower across the grey courtyard, and how fire could always be put out by the rain.

My shoulders pressed against arms and bags as I pushed through the crowd filling the classroom and spilling out into the hallway. Upon sighting Derek behind the double doors―alone, with his arms crossed over his chest and sprays of silver rain dashing across his chocolate curls―I fixed a smile on my face and quickened my footsteps until I was out there with him, guarded from the miserable, insufferable weather by the arm he patronisingly leant atop my head. 

"Hi," I greeted, tasting the bitter rain on my lips and the chill it pierced into my entire body, rendering it drenched, shivering and numb. "Are you waiting for Jessa?" 

"Yeah," He responded. "Do you know what class she's in right now?"

"Geography, I think."

"Okay, so she'll be out in a minute," He said. "Are you waiting for anyone?"

"Caspian," I replied, wiping the glassy coating of moisture from my face, though it skidded and drizzled, relentless.

Der-bear frowned at this, his eyebrows furrowing in the centre and his lips quirking in confusion. "Wait, I thought you hated Caspian?"

"Yeah...well, I have to walk with the fucker anyway. Plus it turned out to be a typical Katya overreaction," I said, managing a half-awkward chuckle. 

"Well, Henry's not going to like that." Derek smirked, and while I was torn between laughing and nodding, and trying to decipher a deeper meaning if there was one, Jess appeared, and I stepped backward out of her boyfriend's warmth. "Hey, Jess."

"Hi Kat, hey Derek," She greeted, scything her arms over her head. Turning to her boyfriend, she asked, "Shall we go?"

"Yeah...no," He said. "I don't want to leave Kat alone. Caspian should only be a few more minutes," He explained, and while I smiled, Jess' expression darkened.