Girls can break your heart. Especially ones that like to get lost - flying out of windows with boys that cannot love them back and coming home with another scar and another reason to cry into her pillow at night.
"You said a boy broke your heart because he refused to grow up, why would you do the same to me?"
Wendy stands with her feet wide in the pants she stole from a box in the attic marked Edmund that she promised never to open and doesn't cry because her heart is harder than you could ever imagine, "Why do you keep trying to grow up so fast, when you know I can't follow you?"
Susan attends the opera alone, in their private box because Wendy likes to dance along and that disturbs other people so her brothers bought her a box. She wears an elegant gown and elbow-length gloves and her hair and lipstick are perfect. She knows she looks like a queen, alone in her box, even if she isn't one anymore.
On the third night, Michael joins her in the box and he's old enough to be desirable and so she fucks him on the floor during the second act, her hand pressed firmly over his mouth so that he doesn't shout out and give it all away. She brings him to tears and he holds her shaking body close to his.
"I was betrothed to a man like you once, when I was older."
"Don't you mean when you were younger?"
She leaves a lipstick stain on his pristine white collar and a bite mark below his ear because she's feeling cruel.
She is ancient. She has lived a thousand lives.
"You're back."
It is both a question and a plea. She's never back for long. She brings heartache with each departure out a window. No walls could ever hold her.
Susan is never envious. Never feels a hard coldness seep into her heart when she enters an empty house. She never thinks of Caspian - his crooked smile and his honest heart - and wonder if he would dare pull her out of a window if he could. He wouldn't. He's too noble.
She is a princess in a tower guarded by a cruel world that doesn't have a space for her and no prince is coming to rescue her and the dragon she chose for a companion is too wild to pin down, chasing shadows night after night.
"How long was I gone?"
"You really want to know." Susan makes statements out of the questions she refuses to answer.
Her kiss is wild and tastes like the ocean and a night sky and what Susan imagines stars must taste like. She's all hers for the moment and so Susan takes what she can.
She's all hers for the moment and so Wendy takes what she's given. That's all she's ever had, the scraps that ancient things dangle in front of her like a weapon; they hurt going down, like eating glass.
There's a shadow in the living room and it has a lipstick stain on one shoulder. Susan can't tell if it's the left or the right because she's not as well-versed in shadows as Wendy is. There's someone's shadow in the living room but no someone and that doesn't alarm Susan in the least because Wendy has been gone six months and she's already resigned herself to learning of a death through the lips of a boy she hates with eyes as old as her own. There's a shadow in the living room.
"Do you belong to someone?"
It hands her a note that just has an 'X' on it and she remembers that Peter never learned his letters. He signs his name with an X because he finds it romantic. He has strange ideas.
She serves the shadow ham and mashed potatoes lit by candlelight. It digs in with relish, matching her bite for bite. It does it's own dishes, washing them in time with her. It follows her to bed even though the hallway is fully lit and it should disappear. This is how she knows it isn't her own.
She dreams of a lion eating her still-beating heart while her siblings watch with blank stares. She dreams of every lover she's ever whispered to in the dark, lined up on a stage under a spotlight.
"You said a boy broke your heart because he refused to grow up, why would you do the same to me?"
Wendy stands with her feet wide in the pants she stole from a box in the attic marked Edmund that she promised never to open and doesn't cry because her heart is harder than you could ever imagine, "Why do you keep trying to grow up so fast, when you know I can't follow you?"
Susan attends the opera alone, in their private box because Wendy likes to dance along and that disturbs other people so her brothers bought her a box. She wears an elegant gown and elbow-length gloves and her hair and lipstick are perfect. She knows she looks like a queen, alone in her box, even if she isn't one anymore.
On the third night, Michael joins her in the box and he's old enough to be desirable and so she fucks him on the floor during the second act, her hand pressed firmly over his mouth so that he doesn't shout out and give it all away. She brings him to tears and he holds her shaking body close to his.
"I was betrothed to a man like you once, when I was older."
"Don't you mean when you were younger?"
She leaves a lipstick stain on his pristine white collar and a bite mark below his ear because she's feeling cruel.
She is ancient. She has lived a thousand lives.
"You're back."
It is both a question and a plea. She's never back for long. She brings heartache with each departure out a window. No walls could ever hold her.
Susan is never envious. Never feels a hard coldness seep into her heart when she enters an empty house. She never thinks of Caspian - his crooked smile and his honest heart - and wonder if he would dare pull her out of a window if he could. He wouldn't. He's too noble.
She is a princess in a tower guarded by a cruel world that doesn't have a space for her and no prince is coming to rescue her and the dragon she chose for a companion is too wild to pin down, chasing shadows night after night.
"How long was I gone?"
"You really want to know." Susan makes statements out of the questions she refuses to answer.
Her kiss is wild and tastes like the ocean and a night sky and what Susan imagines stars must taste like. She's all hers for the moment and so Susan takes what she can.
She's all hers for the moment and so Wendy takes what she's given. That's all she's ever had, the scraps that ancient things dangle in front of her like a weapon; they hurt going down, like eating glass.
There's a shadow in the living room and it has a lipstick stain on one shoulder. Susan can't tell if it's the left or the right because she's not as well-versed in shadows as Wendy is. There's someone's shadow in the living room but no someone and that doesn't alarm Susan in the least because Wendy has been gone six months and she's already resigned herself to learning of a death through the lips of a boy she hates with eyes as old as her own. There's a shadow in the living room.
"Do you belong to someone?"
It hands her a note that just has an 'X' on it and she remembers that Peter never learned his letters. He signs his name with an X because he finds it romantic. He has strange ideas.
She serves the shadow ham and mashed potatoes lit by candlelight. It digs in with relish, matching her bite for bite. It does it's own dishes, washing them in time with her. It follows her to bed even though the hallway is fully lit and it should disappear. This is how she knows it isn't her own.
She dreams of a lion eating her still-beating heart while her siblings watch with blank stares. She dreams of every lover she's ever whispered to in the dark, lined up on a stage under a spotlight.
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