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oh, mercy || lex & lou
May 30, 2020 13:29:10 GMT -5
Post by [nyte] on May 30, 2020 13:29:10 GMT -5
don't you know too much already?
Black ink strains against a half-lidded glare. The scent of stale pages stings against his every breath and it's no wonder that Lex has fallen into such a foul mood. Numbers dance across his vision, softening and sharpening at random intervals - just enough to encourage that awful ache at the back of his skull. His eyes trace the same line over and over again, rereading the sentence as though it will finally make sense this time as opposed to the last dozen attempts.
A blush has settled itself across the tops of his cheeks, deep and red and laced with shame as he spitefully snaps the textbook closed. Libaries weren't a space Lex sought out for this very reason. The expanse of pretentious, leatherbound poetry made him feel small and meek; like he was the butt of a joke that everyone expected him to understand.
It wasn't his fault his afternoons were wasted nursing blackened bruises and broken bones instead of sat comfortably behind a desk. He'd known only the bitter aroma of whiskey caked upon labored breaths and not the laughter of his peers. No one had asked him which he'd rather, he'd claimed his father's wrath as a birthright.
But things were supposed to be different now. They'd taken that oaf of a man and sliced his tongue from his throat, they'd buried his mother and taken Ant and he to what Lex had only just realized was what a home was meant to feel like. He woke up to the sounds of sizzling breakfast, tangled in his comforter and clasping the fabric in a white-knuckled grip. His mothers, the ones who chose to call themselves that, looked at him with an adoration he couldn't help but shy away from. The kisses they pressed to his forehead before they sent him off in the morning burned. He knows they shouldn't, but they do.
They'd enrolled him in a school within walking distance of their cozy two-bedroom house. It was tucked away at the end of an evergreen-lined path, colorful cobblestones lining its shoulders. Lex remembered the day Mom had installed those well: Ma was dusted brick red as Mom tracked dirt all the way into the kitchen. His life was terribly wonderful in every way, as though his nightmares were not memories of worse times and merely addled fables made up in heavy midnight. It made him uneasy.
This life felt like a sweater three sizes to small. He didn't belong in that house with his mothers made of sunshine smiles. Not in school either, where he felt a fool every time the teacher expected him to know the answer to a question he'd never learned. Certainly not here, pouring over middle-school math in an attempt to convince his little brother he wasn't a complete fuck up.
He's starting to think his father ruined him, just like he'd ruined his birth mother.
Slamming the textbook onto the table as though its mere existence were a personal insult, Lex kicks back in his chair. It balances precariously on two back legs, plastic groaning against its metal skeleton at a volume which cuts through the sleepy twilight of the library.
A smirk tugs at the corner of his lip.
That's better.
A blush has settled itself across the tops of his cheeks, deep and red and laced with shame as he spitefully snaps the textbook closed. Libaries weren't a space Lex sought out for this very reason. The expanse of pretentious, leatherbound poetry made him feel small and meek; like he was the butt of a joke that everyone expected him to understand.
It wasn't his fault his afternoons were wasted nursing blackened bruises and broken bones instead of sat comfortably behind a desk. He'd known only the bitter aroma of whiskey caked upon labored breaths and not the laughter of his peers. No one had asked him which he'd rather, he'd claimed his father's wrath as a birthright.
But things were supposed to be different now. They'd taken that oaf of a man and sliced his tongue from his throat, they'd buried his mother and taken Ant and he to what Lex had only just realized was what a home was meant to feel like. He woke up to the sounds of sizzling breakfast, tangled in his comforter and clasping the fabric in a white-knuckled grip. His mothers, the ones who chose to call themselves that, looked at him with an adoration he couldn't help but shy away from. The kisses they pressed to his forehead before they sent him off in the morning burned. He knows they shouldn't, but they do.
They'd enrolled him in a school within walking distance of their cozy two-bedroom house. It was tucked away at the end of an evergreen-lined path, colorful cobblestones lining its shoulders. Lex remembered the day Mom had installed those well: Ma was dusted brick red as Mom tracked dirt all the way into the kitchen. His life was terribly wonderful in every way, as though his nightmares were not memories of worse times and merely addled fables made up in heavy midnight. It made him uneasy.
This life felt like a sweater three sizes to small. He didn't belong in that house with his mothers made of sunshine smiles. Not in school either, where he felt a fool every time the teacher expected him to know the answer to a question he'd never learned. Certainly not here, pouring over middle-school math in an attempt to convince his little brother he wasn't a complete fuck up.
He's starting to think his father ruined him, just like he'd ruined his birth mother.
Slamming the textbook onto the table as though its mere existence were a personal insult, Lex kicks back in his chair. It balances precariously on two back legs, plastic groaning against its metal skeleton at a volume which cuts through the sleepy twilight of the library.
A smirk tugs at the corner of his lip.
That's better.
ALEXIS KANG
