just more idle Friday afternoon bullshit

Dec 19, 2008 12:01

She holds the mug under her nose, breathes deeply, and sinks into the computer chair; swivels slightly and takes a long sip, like taking a drag from a cigarette. Welcome memory; enter flashbacks of his laugh. She thinks 'my gift to you is a smile and your brown eyes', and then wonders who will fall in love with them after her.

Too many.

She types fast and gracefully, giving the illusion of talent where there is none. Only final last words; only her, talking to herself like any moment she would drop dead from too much life, too fast. It all just comes at her in fragments, pieces, jagged and frayed at the corners; where in God's name does she fit? It's a question she has stopped wanting an answer to, and more a reminder that she could have just as easily been nothing at all; if only, she snickers at herself.

Grocery lists that she can't afford; chores she has no intention of doing, but really should; all stuck in the corners of her mind, not yet flooded out by the coffee. Eventually, she will have to do something, but for now she is content with her caffeine and her squalor; something about filth that makes her feel sublimely human. The bed, unkempt and piled with yesterday's jeans, last night's pajamas, and this morning's underwear; a testament to her occupancy of at least one semi-clean outfit. The sight of it makes her proud; gives her a strange sense of victory at the thought of where she has been. It's about escape. Where have the holes in her denim released her from? There have been too many hotel rooms, and living room floors, and closed garage doors to tell, and still she has not forgotten enough.

There must be a way out of here, she thinks, with her hands on her hips; shoulders squared at right angles from the linear equations of her neck, erect and restless; her phone rings and she ignores it. It's nothing personal, only, she has nothing to say. At least, not to anyone who would be calling her at 1:30 in the afternoon on another idle, mildly sideways, Friday.

After what seems like an eternity of listening to the motions of the fan blowing calendar pages around listlessly, she pulls her hair back in a loose pony tail and steps into the shoes she has had since eighth grade. It's not that she is all that fond of walking (she doesn't mind the venomous whispers from passers-by as much as she detests being watched by people who see nothing) but if she doesn't get the hell out of these three rooms post haste, she may just melt into the cheaply installed, not even nailed down, carpet and be lost forever. This idea is not entirely undesirable, but there was still the matter of her uterus to address.

It takes her a while to conjure his expressions. It went something like: soft eyes, under a heavy brow thick with beads of sweat and adoration; raised eyebrow, lips pursed at the corners punctuated with manic anticipation; eye balls round and glassy, mouth hung loose in terror.

The condom, hung in shreds of latex and shards of 'oh shit' around him. She gasped, then held her breath for en eternity in hopes that she would either wake up, or else suffocate.

She was out of practice; reaction was something she was still in the process of learning, and it took her a while to remember that she is the world's most unlucky girl, and ought to have expected as much.

There is the room again; there are the clothes; she, lost in the ocean of her nightmares and ill-fitting t-shirts, stuck to the floor where she has stood for going on an hour wondering how many mistakes it took before she became two.

This consumes her, and before she knew what had happened, she was three.

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