7
"He was like an echo in the darkness with his back to the sun and lips made of white blood, and he was. . . pretty; the kind of pretty that you tried to pretend not to notice, but you did anyway, because blue threads of yarn and tear stained, pale cheeks left you with the feeling of want, and wanting something meant existing. I was so afraid of him existing, that in my head, I thought was dead. . ."
Calum
"When I said my biggest fear is falling in love, I lied. Being alive is, and I don't want to do this anymore."
Cotten candy fingertips eased through my mountainous hands, stripped silhouette capering my profile, grunge walls frolicking with masked shadows, forlornness leaking off of my parched tongue - I was falling into the dark cracks of my mind.
Foreheads pummeling, shoulders pulverizing heliotrope powder, vacillating skin, the taste of obscurity leaning in my front doorway, limbs anesthetizing inscrutability, diametric qualities slimming into thin air.
"One day, I'll set this school on fire."
"Yeah," I squelched, one phalange fondling a cigarette, the other operating through beads of sand, "I guess it's a shame that I won't be alive to see it happen."
I didn't need to watch the school burn down.
I was already a flame, burning myself.
I was slowly killing myself.
And I didn't care.
"I don't enthrall you, do I?"
"I pined for a tropical cyclone rather than an explosion, and clods of cosmos embezzled the sunlight, leaving mephistopheles in my hair, and I needed to breathe, even if I didn't want to. . ."
"Not really," I seized, respiration becoming evanescent in the troposphere, reminiscing copper coiffure like a song, drawing in the raft inside of my eyes.
"I can't wait until you're finally able to say anything aside from my name," Mali laughed gleefully, fingers dawdling and curving like butterflies, "I can't wait to watch you grow up. You're going to make us proud one day."
"M-Molli," I stammered, body quivering underneath the baby blue blankets, "I la-ave you."
Mali smiled, lips vibrating like orange juice on a hot summer day, laughter stuffing the atmosphere with an echo following behind.
"You'll learn to say that properly one day too," Mali sighed happily, "I think I want to be a doctor when I grow up. Saving lives just seems like something I want to do, but I don't know - what do you think, Cal?"
"Goo!"
"Calum?"
I blinked, the sea sprinkling in the corner of my eyes, the sun was gone.
Or maybe the sun was never there to begin with.
"Are you okay?"
I didn't take my anti-depressants today. "I'm fine," I screeched, propelling her lunar figure off of me, gardenias emerging into her aerodynamic holes, twilight prospering in front of me. "Get out."
"What?"
"Please just leave, I need time to think," I reiterated benignantly, the flame inside of my eyes growing larger by the second, "I'll talk to you at school tomorrow."
I spent so much time waiting to be the flame
That I didn't realize I already was one
But one that's worse.
"Are you alright?"
"Her waves of buttercream and watermelon loitered in my brain, but were washed away with mistletoe eyes and an annulus of sapphire dreams instead. . . I can't live with myself knowing he exists. . ."
"I'm fine."
-
"Hey Cameron!"
Gazette portraits circulating between silk arms, red-yellow lips painting luminosity.
Why is he talking to me?
I don't want this.
I don't need this.
"Can you not talk to me for once?"
"No," Michael cackled, locks of cerulean decorating his crinkled forehead, "I was thinking we could meet up for the school project and work on it after school."
"Not interested," I retorted, plasma rushing to my cheeks, draining me from existence, "I have this mountain that I'm trying to climb at the moment, and hanging out with you won't help."
"What mountain?"
"My mind," I answered, before silencing him out with the sound of snowflakes and tiger footprints, swinging my legs away from the table, flying into the light I needed to guide myself away from him.
"Oh, that's pretty cool, I guess," Michael shrugged, dandelions growing between his palms, "I was also wondering if-"
"Fuck off," I interrupted, sailing my sheath and latching onto a cigarette, "I like silence."
Please go away.
Please just be a dream.
Please stop existing, so I can too.
"I thought you wanted me to be a hurricane?"
"Dammit," I sneered, perforating his ribcage, churning at his lamentation in indignation, "I want you to be afraid of me, like everyone else in this damn school that doesn't do drugs is. Why can't you just do me a favor and get the fuck out of my life?"
Red-Yellow lips scowled, prongs of scintillation shading his hair. "I was always taught to be afraid of strangers, but I'm not afraid of you," Michael shrugged, thumping the cigarette out of my hands, "I told you smoking is bad for you."
I'm not okay.
I never was.
But that's fine by me.
Because I don't want to be okay.
Being numb is a feeling.
And I never feel anything anymore.
"You're working my last nerve."
"Cameron?" Michael quirked, green darting to the blue clouds, "I - what's your problem with me?"
"You exist, that's my problem."
"I was burying myself in the soil of his heart, digging my grave further into the nonexistent ground, trying to silence out the silhouette carved into my mind. He was losing his sunlight while I was gaining my darkness. . ."
"Do you not want me to exist?"
"No," I paused, extracting my bag of amphetamine from my back pocket, "I don't want you to exist at all."
"Then I won't." What? "I'll get the fuck out of your life and give you what you asked for."
No.
No.
This isn't what I meant.
"I-"
"Save it," Michael vociferated, "I'm just a dumb fifteen year old looking for a friend, so sorry I thought that you were the right person for that."
"He ambulated away with rocks between his toes, with outsiders in his hair, with bittersweet memories, and I didn't stop him. Because I was getting what I wanted, and maybe just maybe, it was time for me to stop existing as well. . ."
-
A/N;
Thoughts?
I said I wouldn't update anything today but I'm sad and I write this story really well when I'm sad so there you go. It's 1am so goodnight.