Weapons Down

This woman couldn't stop giggling.

It was a grating sort of sound. Like fingernails down a chalkboard. I turn my head away. Well, hell. What did she think she was doing here anyway?

Still giggling, Stacey (or was it Stephanie?) saunters across my shithole of a garage attic, complete with hordes of dirty clothes and the weed stash in between all the countless Playboy issues under my bed. Still better than the main house.

You can't be invisible if there's no one watching.

I watch her daintily step on an old t-shirt of mine from back then. Back when, I can't even recall. My fingers are already lighting another cigarette automatically as her obnoxiously red lips grimace slightly in genuine distaste of her surroundings before transforming into what she thinks is a seductive smirk-pucker-thing when she catches my gaze. I am utterly transfixed on the mole between her eyes instead. I guess there are some things even makeup can't disguise.

Anna never wore makeup, did she?

If she did, I couldn't remember.

Anna wouldn't need makeup.

Thoughts about my dead little sister and all the wonders of cosmetic chemicals are effectively shattered by more incessant giggling. Right in my ear. Goddamn.

"Uhh…Can I get you a chair? From my parents' house, if you want?"

My uncharacteristically polite 'kindly get the fuck off of me' flies right over her dumb blonde head and she proceeds to force her head onto my shoulder. Yeah, no. "Nahh, babe. I think you're comfy enough~."

I decide the winking is even worse than the giggling. She decides to place her hand on my knee, her fingers making little circles on my jeans. Whilst giggling. And winking. I decide to lose it and push her hand away with a "The hell you come over for anyway?"

The shock flies across her clear blue eyes, lidded with heavy mascara and dark eye shadow, before she pouts at me, sidling closer still with a purring noise. "Babe, I just thought you could use some loving…" Her hand, back on my knee, slides higher slowly as her barely sober eyes desperately search for my own. What the fuck.

Within the next half a second, Stacey is pressed against the wall with a yelp, her tiny hand wrenched from my leg just to be pinned above her head instead, as barely irrepressible rage boils up inside me.

"…Fuck it. Just go home."

I don't even realize that my grip on her hand is too tight or that I'm too close to her face than I should have been, until she flinches, a belated sort of innocence in her flushed cheeks and wide eyes. Is she…afraid?

I take the moment to look at her, really look at this little girl in a black minidress too big for her, or are the straps supposed to fall off like that, cornered in a madman's playground. Weren't those quivering lips begging me to join her in her little game, just a moment earlier? She bites her lip anxiously, her suddenly nervous eyes darting around my humble abode as she fought to free her hand from my grasp. She was so fucking tiny.

"I-I…Y-Yeah, I-I should…" She struggles to speak, her tongue darting out to apprehensively lick her rouge lips. She drops her head, her long hair cascading onto my shoulders. I feel her shaking, and my hands release her own like hot coals of their own accord. She's just a little girl.

My mouth is suddenly dry and I tear my eyes away from her, already walking away from the little girl on my bed. I can feel her eyes follow me as I shove the cigarette into my mouth again, my fingers shaking slightly. I close my eyes, inhaling slowly as I will the nicotine to clear my head. Or mess it up. Either works.

She's already at the door before I even notice her move.

I drag my eyes from her feet all the way to her face, belatedly noticing that she hasn't even put on her stilettos properly in her desperation to escape from me. Doesn't surprise me. "How old are you?"

Her hand tightens on the broken doorknob as she levels her voice to answer my question. "F-Fifteen," She turns her head away from me, pulling on the door which I know won't open without brute force because it's fucking useless like everything else in this godforsaken attic. Her nose wrinkling in confusion catches me off guard; split-second innocence is all it takes for me to see the scared little girl again hiding under her mother's makeup and teetering high heels.

It takes me a while to compute and compare. Anna would have been fifteen. Anna would have stolen Kate's makeup to sneak into some twenty-year old delinquent's lair just for some fun, just for something to remember. No, Anna would have been a whole lot smarter.

And then I'm onto her before I even know it, her back against the door, mine arched over hers just so I could reach that little tiny mouth, cigarette still burning, forgotten on the floor. If I'm lucky, it'll burn the whole place to the ground until I'm left as nothing but the ashes I've always been all along.

But fuck, that gasp was absolutely delicious. She tastes like smoke. Did I put out her fire already?

Shame, really.

Her resistance surprises me; hands wrench mine out of her soft hair and away from her tiny waist, and I wonder what I look to her, in this moment. My mouth is still so close to hers but I'm suddenly pulled so far back in time, space, fucking reality, I can't remember how to breathe in my self-inflicting raging inferno.

I can't meet her eyes.

Self-loathing is kind of transparent, anyway.

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. I can't remember when I shattered them all.

I can't even remember if it was me.

The door is open and she's standing outside, lingering for an excuse to look at everything but me. I don't need an excuse not to look at her, but my eyes catch hers when she grabs the bag of marijuana I throw at her that she was after all along. Right before I shut the door in her face.

I wonder if she saw right through me. But then I realize I don't have to wonder at all.