like honey but poisoned

I want you

Lissa's POV

"Where have you been?!" Marie asked me furiously.
"Where I have been? Am I obligated to inform you about my every step now?!" I questioned annoyed. Her ever changing behaviour was giving me headaches.
"No you're not, but I've been worried!"
"Oh, you're worried? Well that's new, because I remember last time we spoke, you treated me like the most obnoxious human you ever stumbled upon," I hissed.
"Well, that's because you are the most obnoxious person I know," she replied coldly. And I was done with the situation, I didn't want to be her personal punching bag, soaking in all of her pent up frustration. I wasn't her therapist and if she only made me feel bad, I didn't want to care.
I already had my hand on the door handle and thought about taking a relaxing bath with some glitter fairy bath bomb, as my plans came to a halt at a particular sentence, spoken by the girl I wanted to ignore.
"But like in a really good way."
I turned around to face her, was she serious? Disbelievingly I watched her lips twitch upwards slightly, forming a small smile.
"What?" I asked, slightly irritated.
"I find it refreshing." Now she was grinning.
"You can't be serious," I said rolling my eyes. "You're starting to wear me out Rémont."
"I know."
Then she pinned me against the door with hungry eyes of forest green. She leaned in closer, playing with the moment of "the almost". I was still annoyed at her actually, but it faded quickly, as her breath carressed my skin and her eyes trailed down my body. We were doing nothing, except for staring at each other, but I noticed that already her mere presence was enough to drive me crazy.
"Please just kiss me already," I whimpered.
"Oh, you're begging. I like it," she said with a playful smile and tenderly moved a strand of hair out of my face.
Finally like a firework of sensation, she did kiss me....................................
In my head.
I had been daydreaming while walking up the staircase and now I had tripped over my own feet, because my daydreaming got too intense.
My knee hurt, so I inspected it, it was bleeding a bit, but I chose to ignore it.

Once I had reached Marie's room I just stood in front of the closed door for a moment, unsure about everything suddenly.
Then the door opened and I jumped.
In front of me stood one of the servants.
I was disappointed immediately.
Even more so, when she told me to be quiet and go away, because Marie had fallen asleep.
But it was only 6 pm, who falls asleep at 6 pm?

Frustrated, I stomped into my room. Aware of the fact that I had no reason at all to be mad at her for not being available due to exhaustion. Which then led to me being mad at myself too. I disinfected the wound and put a Hello Kitty bandaid on my knee.
I felt sick, but not in the normal kind of way, sick in a romantically unromantic way. I think the right term is lovesick - that's how I felt.
More specifically it felt like Marie had become an addiction I didn't know I could develop.
To cope with my emotions, I did what any sane girl in my situation would do - write a total of 7 pages in my diary and listen to sad music. I chose "call me baby" by Beach Bunny, because the song never failed to make me cry.

At the dinner table, I had to force myself to eat something, while staring at the empty space, where Marie usually sat.
Therese and Vanessa were currently discussing plans on where to go hiking.
"Maybe she needs a therapist," I mumbled quietly, thinking out loud and Vanessa's expression changed to one of concern.
"Oh dear," Vanessa sighed. "We've tried that already."
"What do you mean by that?"
Vanessa placed her fork back down.
"I mean that Marie already had several therapists," she answered, while staring hard at the table.
"Several?" I questioned in disbelief.
"Yes, several. Three to be precise."
"But why three? Isn't that a bit much, like isn't one enough?"
"Sure, actually one should be enough, but she scared them off one by one, so I hired a new one and then another. After the third, I stopped trying."
"Oh, I see." It wasn't hard for me to imagine that scenario. "But can we maybe try again, at least one more time?" I desperately wanted to find something that could make her better.
Vanessa poured herself some red wine.
"Lissa, don't look at me with those puppy dog eyes, that is not my decision to make."
Her reply took me by surprise.
"I mean I know you're her aunt, but you're like a parent to her, maybe you could make her try it?"
She took a sip of her red wine.
"Yes and no." She placed the glass back down. "First of all I won't 'make' Marie do anything anymore. You see, Lissa, Marie is my first try at being something like a mother, so I had no clue about anything. I copied things I had seen in soap operas to kind of get along with her, which meant ignoring her own free will and dragging her by her hair to get her to be a 'normal' teenager. But what is 'normal' even? Anyways, what I learnt after all, was you can want 'the best' for someone, but it might turn out to be their worst nightmare. So, no I won't force her to try therapy again, but I can try to talk to her and convince her, but the decision will be hers."
I diverted my gaze and stared at the wooden table. Vanessa was totally right and very considerate, unlike me in this case. In fact I realized my own selfishness in wanting to cure Marie as fast as possible, so that she would turn back into the Marie I knew, the Marie, that I had grown to love.
My thought process took me back to the evening at the lake, when I suggested to go skinny dipping and she had been too shy to do it. That evening I had said something about loving her dark and twisted corners too - I couldn't run away, now that I got to see them.
"I get what you're saying. And you're right, I didn't really think it through. Maybe I could talk to her too."
"That's actually a good idea. I think you probably have a much higher chance to convince her."

That night, I didn't seem to get tired at all. Different things were weighing me down, well, just 2 actually - Marie and my mother's death. I kept on overthinking until I decided to get up again.
Successfully I stole a whole jar of vanilla ice cream from the kitchen and took it to my room.
It was currently 1 am and I was staring at the charcoal nude drawing that Marie had made of me, trying not to get ice cream on it.
As much as I liked to look at the drawing, I would've preferred to look at her instead.
She did, in fact, have a raw kind of beauty. When I looked at myself, I just saw a pretty blonde girl, looking at her 'though was like admiring art, it was like looking wasn't enough, you wanted to know, to understand.
After a while, I decided to watch Season 2 of Barbelle on YouTube, while finishing the ice cream jar - it was my way of coping.

"Are you even listening to me?" Therese asked me, ripping me out of my trail of thoughts.
"Yea, sure, you said something about my future being bright," I mumbled. Therese was currently doing cartomancy with me, because I had asked her to.
"Yes, right."
"See, I was paying attention," I stated, while staring at the clock absentmindedly. It was 2 pm by now.
"It's like 5 minutes ago since I said that."
"What?"
"Look, maybe we should do this another time, when you're more focused," she suggested.
"No, no, no! I am completely concentrated, in the here and now," I said, smiling reassuringly.
"You should go talk to her."
"What?"
"You have this dreamily desperate expression on your face, which tells me that you're thinking about Marie. And since you're obviously not able to think about anything else, I suggest that you go and talk to her."
"Why do you always have to be so direct?" I grumbled, crossing my arms in the process.
"It's simply who I am," she answered, grinning. "And while I'm already at it. Stop being such a princess, Lissa."
"What? But I literally am a princess," I replied.
"Oh you know that's not what I mean. I mean sitting around here, waiting for Marie to make the first move. The both of you can be quite stubborn, I know, but at the moment it doesn't seem to me like Marie's going to fulfill your expectations any time soon, so I guess you'll have to play the knight in shining armour, who will climb the tower and rescue her," she pointed out, still grinning.
"I already rescued her a few times by now, might as well be her turn now for once."
Therese rolled her eyes.
"See, that's what I mean. You really are stubborn. Just ask yourself if she's worth it, then you'll know what to do."
"Fine," I said, accompanied by a dramatic eye-roll.

Slowly I counted to ten in my head, standing in front of the closed door to Marie's room.
By now there was a big sign on it, that read "KEEP OUT" - how inviting, I thought to myself before knocking.
Nothing happened, so I tried to open it, only to notice it was locked.
I knocked again, this time louder and I didn't stop until I heard the click of the door unlocking and Marie stood in front of me.
She looked like a mess with her short black hair all tousled, dark circles under her eyes and she wore a black oversized PVRIS band shirt, that had slipped off her right shoulder to reveal her collar bone. She did look like a mess indeed, but like a hot mess.
"Why did you lock the door?" I asked, just trying to make some normal conversation.
"I was trying to sleep."
"But it's like 2 pm already."
"What do you want?"
"What makes you think I want something?"
"The question is rather, what makes me think you don't."
I sighed, feeling defeated.
"Fine, I want something."
"Which brings us back to my initial question: What do you want?"
"To talk," I stated, chewing on my lip intensely. "With you."
"We are talking right now," she stated giving me a tired look.
"Well, I mean really talking, not just smalltalk," I added quietly.
"I'm not in the mood."
I looked up at her. She had just crushed my hopes without caring. At least that's what it seemed like.
I chewed on my lip again.
"And what if that's not what I want?"
"You just said what you wanted."
She started to crack her knuckles impatiently.
"What if I changed my mind?"
"Fine. I'm listening."
"I want you."
I got on my tiptoes and kissed her.