eris {9} white || fin

He was fascinated by the stars. Soft, white things scattered about a navy sky. "See that one there?" His finger shakes but I know it sits just below the full moon, yearning to caress the first star to appear as dusk gives way to the witching hour. And I pretend, as I always do, that I cannot see the welts upon his forearms, hidden poorly beneath a sweater suddenly one size too big.

"I do." My word are little more than a murmur, head pressed against his shoulder eyes still tracing the wounds upon his flesh. He used to smell of grass, of dirt and trees and ever so slightly of blood whenever he scraped his knees when falling from mother nature's embrace. He used to smell of home, vaguely of vanilla but never the sweet kind.

I couldn't tell you when that turned to liquor, to bitter poison sticking to his breath the rasp of lungs filled with smoke. One day, he was my brother. The boy that held my hand when the world was dark and filled with monsters, my savior and secret keeper. And the next day he was a shadow. Eyes glazed and shoulders slumped, tongue tripping over easy words and his heart always screamed when I pressed my ear to his chest. "That'll be our star okay? No matter what happens, no matter where I end up, every night we'll look at the same star."

And I know that this is goodbye, I pretend that I don't. I always do.

He died the next day. It was the bridge, my parents told me and their eyes were red as the dawn I had just watched with him, he jumped. I like to imagine he fell like the angel he was, from heaven to hell. I like to imagine that he was happy, in the end. They tried to find the body but it was gone, my mother sobbed as father's arm made its way around her shoulder. But I knew they were relieved. Atlas was never a model child- not as slight nor as pretty as their little girl, he had a mouth fit for a sailor and a temper to match.

My brother was a tempest and I was the eye of his storm.

And then I was alone.


"Are you sure this is a good idea?" His voice is like the breeze on this sweltering summer's day. Near nonexistent and completely fucking useless.

"No, I don't fucking think it's a good idea. I'm doing it anyway." I flash him a smile that he cannot see, slipping a bobby pin from my pocket and into the lock. "What's life without a little risk?" It's almost habit now.

"I dunno E." His hair reminds me of a forest fire- wild and stained a thousand different shades of the same angry red. "We could get arrested for this, like, for real?"

"What happened to 'this place is stacked, E! We gotta try!'" I hiss, attempting to wrap my fingers around the whole of his wrist but only making it about halfway. "They're rich and your mom is gonna die. I could care less what the fuck happens to them. If you don't have the goddamn balls to do this I will."

A mask is fit snug around my face, faux clown's smile hiding a scowl. It's funny, really. Of all the masks I have ever worn, happy or bold or confident, this has to be the worst one. I cannot hide behind this smile, these painted cheeks and red nose. I can't make these seem real.

My life is made of nothing but smoke and mirrors. Polite smiles, screams held between pursed lips. It's been nothing but a facade since my brother died, grief shoved so far down my throat that I cant taste anything but bitter hatred for everyone and everything.

But Rory is a bit of good, a light in the darkness and temporary relief from the weight of the world so suddenly forced upon my shoulders in Atlas' absence. I found him in class one morning, head rested upon his knees and eyes fluttering in dreamless sleep. And when we talked I felt as though my story was tangled within his lips. His father died, his mother was weak. Home was nothing but a reminder of what once was and living was as unbearable as the thought of death.

He was small, red hair tangled in frantic curls around the apples of his cheeks and staining white skin a irritated sort of pink. No, he was the next Adonis nor Aphrodite come to grace me with her beauty but there was something about him I just could not ignore. Something good, something so sweet it made my teeth ache whenever we kissed and all other pain just melted away.

They'd send him away, if his mom died.

And desperate times call for desperate measures.

Together, we slip into a house plated with gold. We wear the night as a heavy cloak, silence screaming as we maneuver about a floor equipped to kill. One sound, one breath out of place and we are done. Dead. And there will be more than one life upon our bloody palms.

But inaction is just as criminal. I'd lose him with or without bills lining my pockets.

There were jewels hidden beneath padded locks- diamonds catching the light of our eyes and crashing against one another with every greedy handful. "This is great." Rory murmurs and I cannot help but remember just how long it has been since I have seen this boy smile. Without his brows furrowed and lips anything more than a tight line between his cheeks. "We'll have everything we ever-"

And I couldn't tell you where it came from. The shot, the bullet that bloomed through his forehead and into the window we faced. He painted white roses red in the garden outside. I couldn't tell you whether it was a man or a woman who ended his life, screaming at me to put my hands up or else I was fucking next.

I didn't even look at him, try to gather up his brains from the glass casing. I dropped what I was holding and I ran as fast as I could, shots ringing out all the while.

His mother died not even a week later.

No one but me remembers him. No one but me will ever care. Rory was an insignificant boy with insignificant lineage, without a charming smile or conventionally attractive features.

Soon enough, he was as forgotten as Atlas at the bottom of that river.

It was like losing him all over again.

Except I did just that, the morning my brother came back from the dead. Two years older but just as I remembered. With the same lazy smile and track marks up his veins. And perhaps it wasn't enough to simply know that he was gone, I had to watch him fall to pieces upon a screen- watch his body be destroyed by the likes of a man whose name I will never remember.

It was for my own good, my parents insisted, wiping away crocodile tears and trying to pull me into their arms. He was no good for me, I was going to end up just like him if he stayed.

There's nothing left to do but prove them wrong.

I'll end up just like him anyway.