The child, the Wild and the Morbidly awkward Introvert

Cora-Owning up

The unnerving feeling that I was being watched made me start and turn, my eyes wide open as I realised Sparrow was standing anxiously over me.

"Hi!" I blurted dumbly, where was Misty?
He waggled his fingers at me, still looking like he was expecting me to explode. "You aren't going to have another breakdown are you?"
I chuckled despite the pain slowly numbing my ability to think clearly. "No....I'm just slightly tired-" I made a show of squinting at one of the mannequins stood around us. "Forgive me if I sound incredibly dumb but what is this?"
Sparrow stared at me until I felt my spine melt before he turned away, realising I was asking him a question. "This is where all of the outfits are dreamed up and put together..." He gave me a momentary glance that would have probably scalded a normal person. "Come with me and I'll show you."
I almost saluted him as I followed him through a door the colour of a magnum ice cream.
"This better be worth th-"

I almost choked on my own words when the blinding whiteness of the huge oval-shaped room he had led me into almost knocked me out. The floors were blonde wood; creamy white curtains covering the ginourmous windows and various mannequins spread around the room dressed in flambouyant ball gowns.

The gowns were floor length and covered in intricate details and to one side were racks of very soft looking cloth in various shades of colour and colour combinations. To the other side was a wall with a sketch on it of a very tall, lithe women covered in intricate tattoos with knife sharp cheekbones, large, dark brown eyes and pale brown, flawless skin. Her wild black hair was piled up and her neck was something even the most graceful swan would have envied. There were also fading sketches of articles of clothing and fading glossy cut-outs of some of Sparrow's most well-known designs alongside various detailed diagrams and what looked like snatches of song lyrics scrawled along the wall.

I was about to comment on how creative it looked when I saw something that left me breathless. A poster was propped up against one wall; it was of a shockingly Androgynous and beautiful man with short cropped black hair that only emphasised his delicacy. He was dressed in a black leather bodysuit that clung to his long, lean and muscular form and his body was elegantly, gracefully poised in a dance move. His face was fixed into a blazing stare and in one hand he carried a top hat with candyfloss dripping out of the top.

I noticed Sparrow watching me and smirked. "Hey look it's you!" I nudged him gently as I said this. "Awww so cute!"
He sneered at me. "Shut up-"
"What did you do with your hair?"
"It's a wig..." He muttered as I took in some of his sketches of haughty looking faces that he had experimented with make up on. He looked worried for a second. "Sorry if it's a bit much-"
I would have mock punched him if he was anyone else but settled for a frown instead. "I feel like I'm in heaven. You forgot I LOVE eccentricity and creativity....and judging by your creations here you must be like the father of eccentricity-" my gut clenched painfully, almost leaving me breathless as the word escaped my badly chapped lips.
"Are you trying to kill her with your creativity?" Misty trilled.
I almost jumped and ended up clumsily lurching into Sparrow; grabbing hold of his sleeve and making him grunt as he was tugged against me.
Misty's jaw dropped and she looked at us like we had just torn off our clothes and performed a very suggestive strip-tease.
I noticed I was blushing. Painfully.
Sparrow cleared his throat and my trembling hands fell away from him.
"If she was another friend of mine I would have chopped off your balls and stuffed them down your throat." Misty muttered tonelessly as she bared her teeth in a huge and poisonous-looking glare that she tried to wither Sparrow with.
He rolled his eyes dramatically.
I blanched; making my face as blank as I could manage as I glanced at him questioningly.
"You want to spit out why you hate me so much?" He grumbled under his breath at Misty as he absentmindedly massaged his brow.
Misty focused her glare on him while he acted unperturbed. "I brought my best friend to see him...almost four years ago....he did what all men do and....I never saw my friend again....but it's like he's had a huge curse following him around and now he has some serious daddy issues."
"Daddy issues?" Was all I managed to choke out as Misty drifted away.
Sparrow looked like I was skinning him alive.
I almost pitied him. "Can I please know?"
Misty said something about mail and darted out of the room.
"Well only if I can know something huge about you in exchange." Sparrow scoffed; folding his arms.
I braced myself, balled my quivering hands into tense fists and waited.
Sparrow scuffed a toe against the blonde wood floor and turned slightly away from me. "I seem to have trouble with knocking women up....which sounds funny seeing as who I am and what I do is literally meant to revolve around that...but I struggle....not because-well we try everything....they end up with child for a few months and VIOLA! We lose the baby and break up."
I squeezed my eyes shut as something inside me threatened to gush out painfully.
Sparrow still had his back towards me.
I focused on the small of his back. "I went out. Got drunk. Got pregnant. Forgot how to...be." I felt like a huge iron fist was crushing my chest. "And...lost the baby and ever since I have been who I am....and I forgot how to actually eat properly...I mean....I understand-" I was horrified to realise I was crying messily "-how important food is but just not...for me....or inside me..and when the guilt of having lost a baby...it gets too much.....and how I let so many people down....I fall into a grey mood...which is what happened earlier....seeing-the-boy-it-it made me realise t-th-that I-if....I-" I was struggling to form a coherent sentence and he still had not looked at me "-if I had the baby.....he would have been the same age as Michael-"
He actually turned to me.
"I-I-m s-s-sorry-" I wheezed as I shook violently and was almost sucked into unconsciousness by the power of the despair that had engulfed me.
"Is this ok?" Sparrow murmured in a broken version of his real voice.
"What?" I somehow croaked.
"Comfort-you-"
I only managed to shrug because his arms were suddenly crushing me against his pounding heart.