{don't} forget about me

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

the worst things in life come free to us.

It's been three days since I've seen the sun. The curtains are drawn, stained black and grey with the ashes of everything that was once me. These three days I have burned alive, doused raw flesh in gasoline and held a lighter to my palm. I went up in smoke, curled off of a plaster ceiling and seeped out from under the gap in my bedroom door. Nothing at all is what I have become. Nothing at all is what I have been for a long, long time.

The ticking of this clock is going to drive me mad. Every fucking second I waste is a hammer into my skull, chisel against stake and I want to die. The thought is a shadow sewn to my heels, fingers forcing themselves into an open wound whenever it dare stop throbbing. Whenever the pain is bearable it comes, hands around my throat and it drags me right back down to rock bottom. It cracks my skull against the cement and I can never forget. It is laced within every exhale, stored within every swig of amber poison.

Liquor used to stop it, the throbbing of a heart torn from my chest but suddenly it is all I am, it is the only thing to keep my head upon my shoulders. I used to crave the release of a drunken night, the inability to focus and the fluidity of the world. It all turned to to puddles beneath my fingertips, drawing smiles from lips otherwise sewn together. But now it is the only thing to stop the world from turning to a chaos that I could never survive. It's not a matter of want.

I'm stronger than this. I have to be. Have to lift my back off of this mattress, stagger and hold my head as the world begins to tilt and it's not even twelve o'clock but I'm fucking gone. Drunk. Dead. (Not yet.) It'll all feel normal soon enough, the thick air that I must wade through to reach an oak dresser stained with ceramic figures. Small things, butterflies and caterpillars, birds with opened wings and songs caught between their gaping maws. I still don't know how he did it, turned useless chunks of nothing into beauty but the evidence is strewn about my apartment. The clothes he left, the laughter trapped within them. His bright eyes and his smile are caught within the dust settled upon my mirror.

He made me into something, I know he did. Secretly he chipped away at my ugly bits of imperfection, or he somehow hid them all. I was so busy looking at him that I could not realize how ugly a thing I was becoming. Not yet scarred but innocent and desperate. I wonder if love turned me into this monster, into this empty space.

We used to make wishes upon the north star. Backs pressed to a grassy hillside, his head upon my chest because he liked to hear the beating of my heart and I liked to feel him there. So concrete beneath fingertips that ran up and down his skin. "You know damn well I can't tell you my wish! Those are the rules and I need to be sure this one will work."

It didn't.

But I find that star every night, hand held to my empty chest but I do not beg for him back. No matter how often that wish clings to the tip of my tongue he has made his choice. And it was not me. Wherever he is, please just let him be happy.

The air is cold and my jacket too thin. The wind is strong and I am paper, slave to its currents, victim to it's chill. I guess I forgot that I world lives on, no matter how many days spent holed up in my apartment children die and evil lives. Guns are fired and silver finds stomachs. Injustice and cruelty are all I can see in the faces of those I pass. Hunched against mother nature's currents and trying to get wherever they might belong. Everyone belongs somewhere, after all.

That's why I'm headed to the graveyard.

I wonder if Lilac would know what to do. My older sister was what everyone aspired to be, kind and soft and willing to protect even those my father deemed unworthy. She was always the one to find me locked away in my brother's closets, kept a cold child from freezing over because it was impossible not to feel a little warm with her attention turned to you. I wonder if she could fix all of this because I don't know what to do.

The is no Ariadne to lead me out of this labyrinth.

My back hits a brick wall and I'm not there yet. The graveyard is miles away but I turn to dust nonetheless, consumed by panic and need. A cigarette between my lips, flame eating away at rolled paper and then-

warmth.

I'm not there yet, but it can't be long now. I'm practically digging my own grave.

table by elegant

[gamemaker kelsier]

to be twisted by something;a shame without a sin.

He loops his arm around me and pulls me tight against his chest. I can hear his heart beating in a slow rhythmic pattern beneath his skin and I realize that it's all I really need and everything I ever will.

"We should skip first block tomorrow," I say to him, wiggling up against him. I want to be as close to him as possible. He smells faintly of a house that's been opened to catch the summer breeze. He keeps his doors locked tight. Not to me.

Jasper presses his mouth into the back of my head, partly to kiss it and partly to smell. I can hear the grumble beginning in his chest before it does, I know Jasper's words before he says them. It's always been like that between us. We know each other too well.

"You always want to skip first block Liv," he says. He doesn't disagree though. He never does. We lie there in silence for awhile, listening to the start of the day, neither of us making any sort of sign that we’re about to get up and start getting ready for the day. We spend a lot of mornings like this, especially since he got his own apartment a year ago.

My fingers hook around two stray threads in the blanket and I begin to knot them together, trying a different knot with each tie.

”You were different yesterday,” he says after a long while.

I hum quietly in a way that’s meant to be in agreement but also a way that means I don’t really want to talk about it. Jasper’s the only one I know who ignores that little closing of the door. There aren’t any doors between us that he can’t unlock.

”Did something happen?”

I don’t answer him at first, furrowing my brow slightly in concentration, trying to remember how to tie a certain knot.

Jasper can always tell when I’m upset.

”Liv?”

I shrug my shoulders a bit and sigh, letting the threads fall away from my fingers.

“My mom came home super drunk again. I didn’t get much sleep because dad and her started shouting,” I say to him, no room for embarrassment in my voice anymore.

He doesn’t say anything at all, instead he holds me tighter than he ever has and he presses his face into my neck. He holds me so tight that I can barely breathe.

”You know I love you?” he says and his grip starts to loosen.

A sort of panic grows inside of me.

“Wait,” I say, voice urgent, “Don’t. Let’s just stay like that. Just for a bit.”

His grip tightens again.

“Don’t let go okay?”

”I won’t.”


I wake up slowly, the light in my eyes confusing me. When I fell asleep it was dark.

I sit up, body stiff from laying on the hard wood flooring. For a long moment, I don’t really know where I am.

Afternoon sun filters through the sheer curtains of the drawing room and gets stuck against the back of the couch.

”Oblivion,” my wife calls me from somewhere else. I think inside of the house but last time I checked the drawing room opened onto the park. That’s usually how I got there.

My limbs are heavy, waterlogged I expect. Maybe they’re too light.

I don’t know how to make myself heavier. I’ve been worried about floating away accidentally.

A wave of nausea hits me and I shut my eyes tightly, fingers gently pushing against my forehead in an effort to remember why I feel so ill. There should be a reason.

In my dream I remember feeling good.

”Oblivion, it’s time for your medication and then we’re going to Style Street,” calls my wife, voice almost cheerful.

I sit quietly behind the couch, pulling my knees to my chest. I wait for the need to throw up to pass. It never really does.

”If you come out right now, I’ll buy you candy."

Her voice sings like she’s happy but there’s an edge to her voice. I’m the only one who knows about it.

I hook my hand on the top of the couch and pull myself up slowly, hair falling in my eyes. I don’t know why it’s doing that, my hair is meant to be short. I’m sure it was yesterday.

Dizzyness hits me and I bend over the couch, weakness taking hold of everything that I am.

I know that she’s seen me when her voice comes closer.

”Here you go, take these and you’ll feel better,” she says. I open my eyes and she’s offering me the red pills and the white one with a glass of water.

The corners of my eyes start to lighten and I take them carefully, spilling water on my shirt. The glass is too heavy, I nearly drop it but she catches it easily.

I blink.

We’re in the car. She’s sitting beside me and the driver is in front. My seat belt is on. I tug at it and she murmurs at me softly, telling me not to play with it.

My eyes are heavy and I can feel them falling but she doesn’t like it when I sleep.

I hum to myself to stay awake and pull my phone out of my pocket.

The time says that it’s one in the afternoon. Confusion hits me. When I woke earlier it was much later.

I look out the window and I see people walking.

I check my messages.

There are no new messages.

There are never any new messages.

My fingers go to dial Jasper’s number. It’s still on speed dial. He never answers.

We reach style street without a word between us.

She holds my hand on the street and our driver walks with us. I trail behind her, her pace too fast for me. My cheeks burn and all the air that I thought I had gets caught in my throat.

Nothing hurts.

I can’t feel anything at all.

The pills took it.

I follow blindly, eyes wandering over the shop windows, unable to catch on anything. We go into a shop and I sit quietly in a chair. I try to watch but everything is muffled and I see a trickle of blood run out of the sleeve of a sweater that’s only ever gotten bigger on me and collect on the floor.

It goes splat.

She must have put the needle in.

I blink slowly and a tear falls out of my eye.

It goes splat.

We leave that shop with new bags. There are so many bags that she can’t hold my hand and the driver has bags too.

She gives me one to hold but my fingers don’t listen. It keeps on falling out of my grip until she gets annoyed and takes it herself.

You’re more useless than usual today.”

It’s cold despite the sun.

I can’t keep up.

She’s walking too fast and my feet hurt.

I look down at them and cry out, stumbling backwards and falling with a painful thud onto the pavement. My feet are full of nails. They stick through my shoe and blood seeps out, angry and glistening red. They are so full of nails that I barely have feet anymore, I’ll never walk again.

She must have turned around when I cried out. She sees me on the ground and puts her hands on her hips with an angry sound, not dropping the bags.

”Get up Oblivion.”

”I can’t,” I say, slurring badly, ”The nails.”

I start to cry in fear, I don’t know what to do.

She leaves the bags on the pavement beside the driver and stomps over to me, anger exploding from her. ”There are no goddamned nails,” she says, wrapping on hand around my arm and pulling me up.

Her fingers burn where they touch me and I cry harder, afraid.

I’m going to burn alive.

table by elegant

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

the worst things in life come free to us.

I've survived on 'barely' for years now. Barely enough sleep, barely enough to eat. Barely enough sanity to keep from trapping metal between my lips and painting the world black and red with bits of my brain. There's no point. (inhale, exhale. inhale, exhale. my lungs are stained with tar, screaming for the oxygen i have taken away. i don't deserve it.) I'm a dead man walking. But I'm too much of a fucking coward to right the wrong that is my own heartbeat.

Forever is a scar upon my wrists, it is black and raw and filled with yellow pus. It's poison staining my veins green and I can see death coming for me. I watch it inch closer with every tick, tick, tick of that stupid clock. With every scream that is nothing but gray smoke spewed from between cracked lips. Forever is a promise broken with cold eyes and a soft voice.

(I never loved you.)

Something was wrong. Because I knew him and I knew he wouldn't do this. I knew the canvas of his body better than my own, the way he felt and how his smiles were sweet especially against my lips. I knew every fear, every frown he hid within wide smiles and forced laughter. I knew that something was wrong.

And because I knew he wouldn't do this yet there he stood there in a suit and a tie with death in his eyes I came to the conclusion I knew nothing about him at all. I never knew anything about Oblivion Whitley. It was a game, the strings of my heart played like a fucking harp.

Before the anger came sadness and after the sadness came anger. Fingers curled into my palm, pain lighting up the night with tears that still haven't come, I told him goodbye. There was a badge upon my white coat the day he married that woman. One that I was so sure he would adore because it was bright and official and stained with colors he loved.

(we all gotta reason for being here. a reason we wanna "make the world a better place". how's about you, mister fenwick? why not stay in the capitol with that cushy good life your pop promised? she's gotta name right?)

I remember a time when I couldn't help but smile whenever I thought of him.

(oblivion. his name is oblivion.)

Now I only want to die a little more.

Because the drunken stupor I have crafted four years in the making stops working and everything is painful and real and I hate him for making me feel like this. For making me feel anything at all. I wish I'd never met him. I've never hated someone more.

But if offered one more night- I wouldn't think twice. I wouldn't need to.

"Yes, yes please."

(fenwick! i'm fucking livid. brawling with another trainee? you're better than this. hawk is being sent home and you're goddamn lucky i see more potential in you- you're lucky your father would have my head if i so much as thought of putting you onna train. but you're going to give me an explanation, fenwick, or that'll be five lashes.)

"Get up Oblivion." The cigarette slips from between my fingers, sinking into the earth with an obnoxious crash.

(no offense, sir, but hawk should learn not to run his mouth. i'd do it a thousand times over if given the choice. show him just what a 'fucking fag' can do, sir. whip me, i don't care. i don't regret it, sir.)

The mere sight of him breaks me. Into a thousand more pieces and I knew this was a possibility. That the Capitol is not as big as it seemed when I was eighteen filled with innocent fervor. It'd be a fucking miracle if I managed to off myself before running into him in a busy street on a busy morning.

(oh, fenwick, the things we do for love. take off your shirt and sit in that chair there. five lashes it is.)

But he's wrong. He's still so wrong. Curled in on himself beside obnoxiously bright shopping bags. The way she talks to him- the venom in her tone and the way her hawk's talons sink into his flesh like he is the fattest mouse in the field - it's wrong. Surely she knows that he is so much like the paper he absentmindedly folds. He needs delicate hands and gentle voices.

I can't just sit here. I can't just watch her scream and hear him cry. It's too fucking painful, even for a self-loathing piece of shit like me.

One stride, two, three, four. He's so close that I can touch him, push my fingers through hair that doesn't seem so soft anymore. I don't. I can't. (I never loved you.)

None of this feels real anymore.

I rip her hand away, placing it firmly by her side and trying to act like a fucking peacekeeper when suddenly I am nothing but a lovesick teenager fresh out of training. The ring on my finger burns. "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to step away. You're causing a scene- you're upsetting others around you. If you don't stop now I'll have to write you up for disturbing the peace." I don't search for Oblivion's eyes, instead sewing them upon the cracking cement. I just know I'm going to wake up soon. "As for you, sir, did something happen?"

table by elegant

[gamemaker kelsier]

to be twisted by something;a shame without a sin.

I don't remember the way that the sky looks at night and for the smallest moment I'm afraid that I might be wrong. When I checked my watch it read one. The sky was a strange blue, hazy and dark but in a light way. Was it one in the afternoon or one in the morning?

Did it matter?

Liv stared miserably down at his feet, tears slipping steadily down his cheeks. My wife had her grip on his arm, it was painful and tight and made everything in his arm tingle. I watched him. I don't know where I was. I was on the ground. Or maybe I was in the sky. I reached out for my feet. Liv reached out for his feet too.

I can't remember what my name is.

She's gripping my arm now. I wonder how I got here. I wonder what happened to Liv.

"Shit Liv, get up," she says to me, voice angry. She tugs at my arm and I stare dumbly down at my feet, wondering who the other boy is if I'm Liv. We can't both be Liv, I don't think so at least. Whoever he is or I am, I can't stand. I know that if that's my arm then it should hurt. Nothing hurts.

Not even my feet hurt anymore.

I watch a nail lazily shove it's way through my big toe, nailing me down to the cement but it doesn't matter. I can't feel that either.

She shakes my arm roughly and my head falls back and then it tips forward. I can't stop it. I think my limbs might be on strings all held by someone else. I don't think I'm a human being anymore. Everyone always said I was pretty like a doll. It would make sense if my lips were painted on. I haven't been able to figure out how to eat for weeks.

I shut my eyes. I don't think I've ever been so tired. I'm always tired now but never like this. My head droops and the white is coming right now, it's creeping from the corners of my eyes. I can't open them.

For a moment there's warmth on the back of my neck from the sun and the world seems gone. There's muffled sound trying to break into my ears but I can't hear it. I'm dreaming again, like before. The warmth on my neck is the heat of Jasper's skin pressed to mine. The tightness of my chest is his arms wrapped around me. It feels safe here on the pavement.

Her claws grip me but i'm happy.

Time seems like a waste.

I'd give up every second right here.

I nearly don't catch myself when she lets go of me.

My palms hit the cement with a loud 'smack' and I can feel the roughness of it dig into my skin. It's a good feeling. It's a wake-up.

I open my eyes slowly and everything begins to flood back in. I taste iron in my mouth. I must have bit my lip. I sit back and press my fingers to it just to see if they come away red. They come away green instead.

My wife is speaking to someone angrily. I don't catch much of what she says. She's defensive a lot. Her voice has that edge to it, the one usually just for me. She's angry then. I try to remember the times when she isn't. I can't.

I think I almost died just now.

I try to remember what that's like but I can't.

"As for you, sir, did something happen?"

"No," I mutter softly and make steady eye contact with the pavement. One time I answered wrong and she got mad at me later for it. Always, always say that you're ok darling, even if you aren't. Then she showed me what she'd do to me next time if I didn't.

I don't remember things very well anymore but I remember that.

I almost forget that now I'm supposed to smile nicely.

I raise my head and pull the corners of my lips up for the camera but there's no flash. I catch the clouds behind his head first, then the flashing advertisement, then the way he his hands shake slightly, then the colour of his pants and then his face.

My smile breaks a bit.

I can't help staring at him.

You shouldn't stare into the sun so long; it'll burn your eyes out.

I don't mind.

If the last thing I saw was Jasper Fenwick's face, I wouldn't mind at all.

table by elegant

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

the worst things in life come free to us.

I meet his eyes and I melt. Through the cement, into the center of the universe and I am burning alive. Rotten flesh curls off of brittle bones, fire licking hollow cheeks and staining them bright red because there he is. What was once mine lays shattered upon the cement, so broken that I can barely recognize what lies behind his gaze made of glass. It's not Liv, it's not right.

And then, I remember I don't know him anymore. He is not the same boy with a mouth that runs a mile a minute and a mind about a thousand times faster. He's not the Oblivion I slept beside most every night, not even close. He's a married man, he's in love with someone and it's not me.

I look up at her, the very sight twisting my stomach into bitter knots and I think I might be sick. Control is so quickly slipping from between fingers that have been nothing but bone for centuries now, as per usual Oblivion chips away at the heart I tried so hard to kill- life suddenly forcing itself into a body that yearns for only death. I guess I never really faced it- this pain. This betrayal. I pushed it all away because that's what was easiest, throwing myself into work and drowning myself with vodka. I erased most every night with drinks and slept the mornings away. Because that is what I wanted.

But now is not the time to be weak, to be Jasper, it's not the time to feel and I know that I will bury all of this in a fresh bottle later tonight. Until I cannot even remember his name and the look of his sunken cheeks. And I want that so bad it hurts, the nothing. The nothing that does not confuse me or play with the strings of a broken heart. "No." Oblivion says and he is just that. Oblivion Whitley. Artist, protege, stranger. No. Says a man obviously scared, alone, and under the influence of a woman who stands upon this earth like she owns it. It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together.

I'm not helping him because I love him; I'm helping him because it's my duty.

And that's a fucking lie.

"Sir, with all due respect, I know there's something more going on here." I place a gentle hand upon the stranger's shoulder, kneeling so that there is little more than air between us. "This... isn't okay. You're not okay. And I need you to tell me what's wrong." Absentmindedly I cup his hand between my own, seeking the warmth that I once found when I pressed our palms together. It's not there. I didn't expect it to be.

He doesn't love me, he doesn't fucking love me yet here I am with rosy cheeks and a heart leaping into my throat at the mere sight. Smell. Touch. Of a stranger who is only vaguely reminiscent of someone I once loved.

But I can't just leave him here.

He never loved me but I would still shoot the sun and the moon and the stars above just to see him smile.

"You can trust me, Liv." My voice is little more than a whisper and it's like time has stopped. It's surreal, talking to him again, calling him by a name that once filled me with warmth. And it's surreal, how poison that word has become, leaving me cold- leaving me wishing that I hadn't even bothered to wake up this morning. This stranger destroyed everything that once was Jasper and I am what's left in his wake. I should hate him, I think, but I simply can't be bothered.

I can't look at him, not for long. Not without seeing everything he was to me, with his face pushed into my chest and his arms around my waist. I cannot help but remember the bitter-sweet blueberries that clung to his lips and how damn good it felt that of all the people who wanted Liv- it was me he chose. For a few, fleeting years I was the luckiest asshole in the goddamn world.

There's a kind of yearning in the pit of my stomach, a growing need to take him into my arms and never let go. The fact that I can't is what drove mad. Drove me into a liquor bottle and now that is all that can keep me grounded. Numb. All that keeps me in control.

For years, I have wanted to see him again, to fill the gaps between my fingers with his because they fit like the pieces of a perfect puzzle. And I thought it would be good, painless. I thought it would make everything better because he always did.

Now? I realize how naive I was. That we were never pieces of the same puzzle. That I was young and blind and so fucking in love that I gave my heart to a man who never wanted it.

Now, I just hope all of this will be over soon.

table by elegant

[gamemaker kelsier]

to be twisted by something;a shame without a sin.

For a moment, it's as if no time has passed at all. I wonder if maybe it hasn't, if everything has just been one long nightmare. That'd make sense, I've always had vivid dreams. I blink slowly and the lights flick off and on. Jasper stands above me and I'm wondering if this is just another dream. His hair's different though.

In my dreams it's shorter.

The street is dark around him, like he's sucking in all the light and the people that walk around us are suddenly muted. There's nothing else that exists except Jasper. There are new lines on his face, and he looks tired. He doesn't look as tired in my dreams unless I'm dreaming about being in bed with him.

A bird lands on top of Jasper's head and a small sound jumps out of my lips. I know this bird. I watched him peck out my eyes in the mirror once. I need to warn Jasper but my lips won't move, as if they've been glued shut. I press my fingers to my lips and I can fail the nail that has been hammered in, pushing my lips together.

I try to feel panic but it eludes me.

I watch him talk to Fatima, anger passing like a storm cloud through both mouths. I want to tell them I'm not worth it but I can't be sure about what they're talking about anymore. I can't remember how we got here, how long Jasper's been gone. I don't think he's even really here. It's been so long, there's no way he'd show up here for real. Sometimes when Fatima is really hurting me, I dream about him running into the room, pulling her off of me and gathering me up in his arms. I dream that he runs away with me and he loves me still.

I scooped Jasper's heart out with an ice cream scoop and then stomped all over it.

It'd be a miracle if he did.

A hand falls on my shoulder, heavy and warm. "This... isn't okay. You're not okay. And I need you to tell me what's wrong."

I forgot that Jasper was the only one who was ever good at telling when I was upset. My mom used to tell everyone that I was the happiest kid, that I never cried. That wasn't entirely true but Jasper was the only one who ever seemed to know it.

I think about his fingers on the fabric of my shirt and wish that they were on my skin.

My eyes wander over to his hand and there's a different scar on it than in my dreams. In my dreams he doesn't normally have flowers sprouting out of his knuckles either. I can't ell if this is real or not. I want it to be but that doesn't really mean much.

I look back up at his head and the bird has settled down on his head. He's not even pecking his eyes out. I don't know what that means.

He takes my hand and holds it between his own. His hands are so hot. They burn me. I can see the steam rising from inside his hands but it doesn't hurt. I don't say anything, I don't want him to let go. If I shut my eyes I can pretend that this is real and he is kneeling in front of me. I can pretend that there isn't a ring on my finger.

I do it.

I pretend that there is no Fatima. The weight on my finger is the engagement ring that I made for us. It matches his that he wears on his own hand. I imagine that it's there on his finger and it is. I'm eighteen years old again and I am so in love.

I can't remember why I hurt him.

I think I must be a monster.

Claws grow from my fingertips, long and hating and they puncture his skin, bursting through to the other side, cutting right through his wrists. Blood gushes out, bright orange and spilling everywhere. I cry out.

Fatima growls angrily, "You're hurting him!"

Is she talking to me or Jasper?

"You can trust me, Liv."

He's talking to me.

I trust him.

Without question or doubt or poison I trust him. This is not the same Jasper in my dreams but I trust him.

"Yeah," I tell him, voice muffled from the nail sticking through my lips. I speak as quietly as I can, I don't want my wife to hear me. My free hand wraps around his wrists, trying to hold the blood in but my hands are smaller, they don't fit all the way around. I hold as tight as I can, applying pressure. It's important to apply pressure.

I remember that.

My eyes search for his but the world is moving too much. I blink to try and straighten things up but I sway too far to the left and the world is tilted. My body falls against one of the shopping bags and I feel something break. I don't know if it's my bones or the item inside until Fatima's hand is falling in reflex, fast and hard against my face.

smack.

"You drunk asshole!" she screeches at me. I don't feel the sting on my cheek. The needle took the pain. I stare down at the broken thing inside the bag, wondering what I'm doing in there and if I'm not repairable now. It sounded like breaking glass.

"I'm sorry officer," she says, "He's got a real problem."

I take my hands away from my made up Jasper and reach inside the bag, hand closing tightly around a piece of glass.

It's warm and wet.

I can feel it's heart beating.

table by elegant

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

the worst things in life come free to us.

My innocence was drowned in a bottle. In long, desperate mouthfuls of bitter liquid that left my head spinning and my stomach churning. I was doomed from the beginning- a child born to apathy and greed. I was a last name to be slapped upon trophies and medals. I was a punching bag, marred by the fists of my kin and they were the tears that did not fall the long hours I was forgotten in a locked cupboard.

I'm broken because I fell in love. There was no room for me to become callous and cold when there was so much good in my life. He was the cream to every brand in a weathered hide, he was the needle and the thread to which my rough edges were sewn back together. My father would be proud of what I have become. Empty and cold, caring for nothing and least of all myself. I think father likes it that way.

If I died, I think he would smile. (My son was a war hero.) Your son was a coward. But no one has to know that, not if I'm rotting in the ground and father's face is plastered over every magazine cover in every newsstand. If I died, I think I would smile. (I deserve this.) I took the easy way out.

There is too much vodka on my breath to make sense of the voices. They dance and scream nothings into a concave chest- filling it with despair and false hope. And it's like I'm sixteen again, his back pressed to my chest and there is not even a blanket to separate us in that summer's stagnant breaths. We wouldn't move come dawn- there was no reason to. The rhythm of his breaths would lull me into a soft sort of stupor and the sun would have sunk to the middle of the sky by the time we decided to stir. And I would pour sugary cereal into plastic bowls and threaten him with homework if he didn't eat. He forgot to do that sometimes. There was too much happening inside his head that I had to keep track of insignificant things such as food and water.

But I'm not sixteen, I'm twenty-two. I am not Liv's and he is not mine. We are perfect strangers- four years older than we remember, different trees grown from the same seed. What I would give to bring the palm of his hand to my lips, to beg for warmth with desperate kisses down his forearm because god, I've been so cold for so long. But he is ambrosia and I am nothing more than a man- even a taste could kill.

"Yeah." Oblivion whispers and I smile even though I have forgotten how. A corner of my mouth curves and it feels as though I'm tearing myself in half. Oblivion is worth the effort. His hand is small around my wrist, squeezing so tight I think I feel my heart start to beat again. The desperation in his touch is familiar- like the mornings before school whem he would beg for five more minutes, just the two of us.

If I wasn't drunk I would have caught him. When he stumbles I am trapped in amber, hands gripping a waist that is already on the ground and my knees grind themselves upon gray pavement and it hurts. A good kind of hurting. Not the fragile twisting up of my insides or the way my heart would sink whenever his name came to mind.

If I wasn't drunk I would have stopped her. Her palm is bright red across a pale cheek and rage sets my jaw in place as the sound of her skin against his echoes about my empty skull. It has been a long while since I felt something so intensely- an ember of hatred turns to hungry flames as she shatters the porcelain doll I have worked so hard to keep pristine. She paints maroon over every imperfection that I had mapped upon his silver skin.

His hands leave me, welcoming a winter to which there was only a moment's rest. And his hand snakes into a bag and not into the gaps between fingers and for some reason it all seems wrong. The woman is screaming, drunk bastard- her voice reminds me of nails upon a chalkboard. I don't really know how she figured out I was drunk, I can't even tell anymore. I often lose hours at a time to my favorite poisons but otherwise it is always the same drowsy elation bubbling up and down every notch in my spine.

Happiness from a bottle is a shit replacement for the real thing. "I'm sorry officer." The woman says but I do not look at her. "He has a real problem."

And then there is blood. I know the smell, the warm iron I so often imagine running down my temple- red to rain upon the barrel of a smoking gun. I'm not sure where it's coming from but I don't think that matters because when I stand I cannot take my eyes off of her now.

"You are aware that was assault, Ma'am?" The formality drips with bittersweet poison, "We'll have to take your husband in for questioning, standard procedure." I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what I'm saying but it feels so damn good. "I'll contact you as to whether he chooses to press charges or not."

Oblivion is little more than a feather as I hold him, one arm hooked around his back and the other beneath his knees. That doesn't matter.

I turn my back to the woman, I don't wait for another word.

I'm taking him home.

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