Week two. Monday.
I’m late today.
I catch the bus in the nick of time; the door almost slides shut and I send the driver the most pleading smile I can muster, which isn’t a great deal. It does the trick, though, and he lets me on, albeit with an incensed sigh you would give to someone who’s asked you for too many favours. Don’t fucking let me on, I wanna yell at him. It’s not like I wanna be here anyway and I don’t need your goddamn reluctant acquiescence. But of course I don’t. Instead, I drag myself to the upper deck without enough energy to even roll my eyes.
The warmth of today is hollow. It’s an empty shell, it lets the cold in without putting up a fight; it’s feverish, and I feel faint. Last night was hollow, too; I was awake and asleep at the same time, drifting in and out but always stuck in the middle. All I saw were flashes, but they remain burned in my memory.
Her ghost haunts me across the Atlantic, and I don’t dare to close my eyes. I know, when I do, that she’ll be there.
I don’t let her haunt her. I don’t close my eyes, I don’t think about her; I stare out of the window – no, not stare. I look; the difference is that it’s pointed. I observe. It’s a serene scene, trees on both sides, roofs neatly, curiously peeping out from behind them. Some structure towers above the trees, the roofs, even the bus, a cage, I think – I remember, now, that park with the zoo, and I think this must be it.
I make a note to go there sometime, and with a wryly think that Dad would be proud. The sadistic part of me says, “Don’t tell him.” I think I’ll comply.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse the back of a familiar head. I avert my eyes, but then it becomes impossible to ignore him in any case, because his voice reverberates across the upper deck in a way that stings you. He’s turned around now, at the top of the stairs. His eyes meet mine, and for the first time there’s not a hint of smugness.
“…always have to act like such an immature cunt? Fuck, Jasper.” This is another voice; a head full of burning curls climbs up the stairs. Remy Harris.
Here’s what I know about Remy Harris: she’s rich, but likes to pretend that she isn’t. Her clothes are purposely and carefully ragged, her shoes scuffed in a way that’s meant to make you believe it wasn’t that way in the store, her defiant, mocking expression probably the result of hours of practice in the mirror rather than anyone not letting her get away with shit. Here it might work, but in Boise they’d eat her alive.
Another thing that now becomes clear to me is that she doesn’t like me. I know this because, after tracing Jasper’s stare to mine, she sends me an ugly snarl and shakes her head. This, she’s genuine about.
Jasper is still looking at me. When he opens his mouth, I expect the same sharp, grotesque words to fall out, but instead he just says, “Whatever, Remy. I’m not acting in your fucking soap anymore.” Then, “Nothing to look at here.”
He ignores Remy’s poisonous laughter; his first step is faltering, hesitant… shameful. But then he assumes the same confidence he always holds, strides down the aisle. He only sends me a wry, mirthless smile this time when he passes. I hear him laugh out behind me, like all of this is funny when it isn’t and damn it it enrages me. It enrages me so much that when Remy completes her ascent up the staircase and directs her stare at the back of the bus, and then at me, I glare back with everything I have and give her my best venomous smile. And then I avert my eyes, and if she’s shocked I never get the chance to find out. One thing is for sure: I didn’t shock her as much as I shocked myself.
a/n GAH GUYS I’M SORRY I TOLD YOU IT’D BE AN UPDATE A DAY AND THEN I DON’T UPDATE FOR LIKE A FULL WEEK I’M SORRY I HATE ME
okay so it won’t be an update a day ahahaha sorry. Life is pretty goddamn fucking hectic right now and sigh, organising gap years and sigh, personal statements and sigh, life.
LOVE YOU THO
tamar
(also song on the side is asaf avidan bc i went to see him in concert and he's diddly-damn perfect)
