Your tongue is in my mouth, trying to keep the words from coming out.
You didn't care to know, who else may have been you before...
I want a lover I don't have to love
I want a girl who's too sad to give a fuck."1
And...
"You write such pretty words
But life's no storybook
Love's an excuse to get hurt
And to hurt.
Do you like to hurt?
I do, I do,2
Then hurt me..."
From: "Lover I Don't Have to Love" by Bright Eyes]3
Rachael’s notebook lay open next to her, her pencil tucked inside the crease of the pages. She’d finally been lulled into slumber, the earphones still inside her ears screaming with electric guitar, heavy bass and screeching lyrics. She breathed softly, her dark hair spilled around her shoulders. Suddenly, Rachael was awakened by the sounding of a crash above her, and she flinched, curling into herself and hugging her knees. She winced as the raw skin of her arms chafed against her denim jeans.5
Blinking rapidly, the basement’s brick walls and cold, concrete floor came into her focus, the mattress she’d slept on tattered and pushed into the corner. Rachael propped herself up on her elbow, reaching over to retrieve her glasses from the top of an overturned crate. They slipped from her fingers when the chime of her cell phone alerted her of a received text message. She groaned and fished her phone from the pocket of her jeans, and flipped it open on its hinge.6
FROM: Evan <3
Hey baby. Wats up?7
Rachael sighed, and found her glasses once more; pushing them onto the bridge of her nose, her vision cleared considerably, the letters printed against buttons sharpening. She cringed as the sound of shattering glass reached her ears from upstairs, and her mother screamed. She clutched the phone tighter in her hand, concentrating on getting her thumb across the keypad to spell out her reply.8
TO: Evan <3
Mom&dad are @ it again. They are yelling. Alot. ):9
Rachael swallowed back her tears, gently laying her head back against the mattress, when the phone dinged again.10
FROM: Evan <3
Wats happenin?11
This time her fingers trembled, and she repeatedly punched the backspace button to correct her little errors.12
TO: Evan <3
Somethin just broke.13
Rachael slid her phone into her pocket and angrily shoved one of the many crates and cardboard boxes that held her belongings, her clothes, books, CD’s and whatever else she was fortunate enough to keep or purchase with the little money she earned. She ignored the next four text messages her phone notified her of as she looked through her spilled possessions. She found a framed photograph of her, flanked by her two old best friends Caitlin and Josephine. She remembered clearly their signatures on the back of the picture, Cait’s elegant script and Josey’s sloppy letters.14
Rachael sighed, tucking the snapshot away as she pushed away the memories of Josey’s drunk driving car accident and Cait’s suicide.15
They were memories she’d rather not remember.16
Suddenly, there was a loud tap at her window. She jumped with a surprised gasp, stumbling backwards over another crate turned over onto its side, and fell back against the cement floor. She glanced up, recognizing the boy behind the glass windowpane as Evan, who held up his cell phone as a statement that she should have checked her messages.17
“What the hell?” Rachael demanded as he pushed the small window open and dropped into the basement easily. “How’d you get here so fast?”18
“I was on my way before I texted you, Rach.” Evan answered. Strangely enough, he seemed sober. He offered his hand to help her up, and when her fingers locked with his, noticed the healing cuts running up her arms like dark ink against pale parchment, and couldn’t remember them being there the last time they’d met. He didn’t comment, but instead shrugged out of his denim jacket and held it out for her.19
“Are we going somewhere?” Rachael asked, sliding her arms into the sleeves. Evan didn’t reply. He turned away and stepped onto one of the crates, climbing out of the window. She followed him, and he helped her through, closing it behind her.20
“I’m parked up the block.” Evan said. Rachael nodded, and kept her head down as they walked together in silence, his hand in her back pocket. When they reached his Jeep Wrangler stopped against the curb, he held the passenger door open for her, and scrambled into the driver’s seat, digging around in his pockets.21
“Looking for these?” Rachael asked, jingling his car keys together, and raised a delicate eyebrow.
Evan grinned and took them from her, pushing one into the ignition and letting the engine roar into life. He cranked the heat up, the dial pushed as far as it would go. “It’s been awhile since we’ve done this,” he mentioned.22
“Done what?” she asked.23
“Gone out like this.” It’d been a couple months, he guessed; sure, he’d stayed over with Rach, talk for hours with her before stealing a nap holding her close, wake and mollycoddle her, before finally kissing her goodbye.24
She’d been uneasy about going out, though, ever since the last time, when a drunken man had slid his filthy hand up her skirt. Evan had dragged him out into an alley and beat him until he was battered and bloodied, but the man had been carrying a knife and drove the blade into Evan’s side. He could still remember hearing Rachael screaming, tears streaking down her face. He’d swore at her and seized her by the arm, his grasp so tight it’d left bruises against her skin, and threw her into the car.
Though Rachael had accepted his first apology, he’d sent her flowers every day afterwards for a week after that.25
She told him she didn’t like flowers.26
“Yeah.” She said finally. “It has.”27
As the delicate faces of all the girls he’d kissed and slept with ran through his head, he offered Rachael a cigarette inattentively, ticking off the names in his head as she lit it.28
First it had been Heather, the day he’d been released from the hospital. Then it was Jessica, a girl that had to be only fifteen, who’d been so bruised he couldn’t refuse her. After that was Kelly, a plain woman looking for someone to make her feel special. Meredith he’d met at a rave, dancing on a table with glow sticks hanging around her neck and a tattoo at the base of her neck. The last one had been Nicole, a quiet one with a social dysfunction
and a frightening fetish for blood.29
But Evan always liked Rachael best; she was fragile, like his own porcelain doll. He reached over suddenly and ran a hand through the long obsidian locks of her hair, bringing a smile to her sweet lips as she took a drag from the roll of tobacco caught between
them.30
Evan pulled his Wrangler onto the gravel, his tires spitting dirt and rocks, but he found a quieter, more private place and parked instead in the grass. He clambered out and pulled Rachael’s door open for her. They clasped hands, their fingers fitting together perfectly.31
The rocks cracked underneath her boots, the dust gathering in clouds around her ankles, and Rachael focused on the ground and the warm feel of Evan’s hand in hers, rather than allowing herself to turn over harder topics in her mind. “Evan, I really—”32
Evan pulled her aside suddenly and pressed his lips against hers, and for a short moment, nothing mattered to Rachael except him, and only him as her words dissolved into little fragments of thought. He pulled away, still holding her hand tightly in his, and she reached up and playfully tousled his auburn hair, offering a grin.33
“Rachael, I love you.”34
Rachael glanced away, a sudden flush warming her cheeks, her lips still posed in a soft smile. “I love you too, Evan.”
Adding your comment:
Those are my thoughts.
