luca caine { four } fin

Perhaps it would be wise to begin with apologizing, but I have never said "sorry" in my life. I have my regrets, but whatever I've destroyed, it won't be fixed by frail words. I should say "sorry" for a number of things, lay down my pride and repent for what I've wrecked, but it would to no avail.

I was screwed from the beginning, anyway.

If I kept a tally of how many times I've made my mother cry, perhaps I would have pages full of marks by now. She is a fragile woman- I aspire to be the opposite of her. She prefers to hide everything that isn't perfect in the shadows- her fraught relationship with my father, and of course, me. My mother will not settle for anything less than perfection, like the typical, prissy Career parent.

She cannot seem to get it through her thick skull that I will never be a part of her perfect family.

"I can't fucking stand you, Ripred fucking dammit- FUCK!"

"You're nothing but chaos, you know that?"

"Yeah? Maybe I am, I don't give a shit!"

"You're a good Career, Lucaria, you shouldn't waste your talent like this! All you do is sleep around with random girls and pretend like you don't care but I know-"

"My pussy my choice. Suck it up."

Her favorite weapon against me is my "promiscuous" behavior and that night, the one I spent with my elusive friend-acquaintance, the daughter of one of the richest women in Four.

The night at the party her mother held in their castle of a house, I remember she wore flowers in her hair rather than diamonds around her neck and wrists. She was a difficult girl, frustrating even- maybe that's what I liked about her. I'd call her princess and smirk, and she would just look at me with those big blue eyes and shake her pretty little head. It was endearing, how she would shy away and blush at my comments.

I always thought my chest was an empty, cavernous space, until the night she kissed me at my doorstep before walking back home. It terrified me, the spark of warmth I felt at the touch of her lips, but I have never been one for self control.

"Goodnight, Princess," I said when I pulled away, and she disappeared into the shadows.

We didn't fuck until much, much later. I'm known for being quick with my lovers, but it was different this time. She wasn't just another nameless pretty face.

Scarlet stained me that night. It stuck to my lips, sunk into my skin and leaked into my mouth from my tongue. It was heavy, like she'd slathered tar across my mouth, or maybe that was just the weight of what I'd done. Sometimes I can still feel it there with the warmth of her lips against mine, but it always ends in cold. She's gone. And she's never coming back.

I told her I'd come back.

That night we were wrapped up in each other's sheets, I told her I'd come back. She knew I was a user, a liar, a cheater and a backstabber, but when she kissed me, none of it mattered. Sometimes, when she was in my arms and there was nothing but her warmth and the darkness of her room, I would forget what a fucking bastard I am. Maybe she did, too. Maybe that's why she could look me in the eye and genuinely believe, even if for only a few fleeting moments, that I'm a good person.

She was always an optimist.

Rose.

Her name is a white scar on my skin, a tear in my heart, a pang in my head.

And when I woke up the next morning, my hair, disheveled from my pillow and strewn across my face like straw, the redolent scent of smoke still clung to my shirt. I breathed in, let it invade my lungs and burn my nostrils like it did at the night before's bonfire.

There was charcoal black on the sides of my fingers from where I had rubbed my eyes, still sticky with eyeliner and old, flaking mascara. The pale light filtering in from her window glared into my tired eyes, and I turned my head away, took one look at myself in Rose's bedroom mirror and saw someone I didn't recognize. They had my face, my body, but it sure as hell wasn't me. I saw a girl with something more than just an empty desire in her heart, someone who was weak and broken at another's feet.

It scared the fuck out of me, so I got the fuck out of there. I remember how the soft shutting of the door behind me split my eardrums, how the moment I left I wanted to come back. How I pushed forward regardless.

I told her I'd come back.

But I'm not one to keep my word; breaking promises, destruction are my greatest, most honed skills. Perhaps even all I'm good for other than a bed warmer.

I always leave. My lips are so used to forming "goodbye" or nothing at all, just silence as I shut the door and leave it all, that they cannot seem to mold around any other word. I always leave- I should have known that long before I got into her bed.

The sad, fucking pathetic truth is, I like how it feels to be unattached, let alone the consequences. Being alone is power, knowing that someone's heart is your hands, yours to crush whenever you like, is power. And love, attachment, is weak. I never gave a shit about anyone before her. I'd find a pretty girl, have my fun and then leave- I'd always leave. But then Rose, goddamn Rose of all people, could bat her pretty eyes and suddenly I was helpless. I wasn't the one with power anymore- I was attached, falling, even.

I couldn't fucking bear it.

She was soft, perfect, innocent. Everything that I am not.

Maybe I'm an idiot for letting that all go, but it's too late for regrets and it'd be a waste of my time to mope about a lost possibility.

(So why the fuck can't I brush it off?)

"You're an idiot."

I lost count of how many times my sisters have told me this by now. I don't know the hell any of them put up with me, with my impulsive and petulant attitude and destructive nature. Despite my snide remarks and sporadic outbursts, there is a place in my blackened, bitter heart for them.

I'm not sure what we are- friends, enemies, something in between. I just know they're one of the few people I actually give a damn about, and even then, I've never told them that I love them.

We came in threes, all born only seconds apart. I can only imagine the horror on my mother's face when she popped out triplets- as if she needed one little bastard, now she has three. We look like copies of our mother, with her blonde hair and sharp, striking features, but with our father's blue eyes and thick, dark brows.

No matter how many times they call me an idiot, no matter how many times I tell them to fuck themselves, I think- I hope- we will always stick together, even though I know I don't deserve it.

I've always been a selfish bitch, anyway.