syren steele . district six | fin

She had always hated the taste of booze. It was the hard liquors she abhorred with such a passion; but she did like the bittersweet of taste of wine, loved to sip it out of a crystal glass until her lips were stained dark crimson. (Luckily for her, the Steeles were always wealthy enough to afford it.)

When she wasted her nights away at parties, unless there is wine (which there usually isn't at teenage ragers), she always brought a silver flask full of water with her. She'd take swigs from it all night long and pretend that she was falling deeper and deeper into drunkenness. She never was, really. She just didn't want to sit alone in her room and think about Talia.

So instead, she thought of her dead little sister surrounded by horny teenagers who were drunk out of their minds.

Something changed in Syren Steele after Talia's disappearance. She had once had the chaotic nature of a storm; she was rebellious, irresponsible, and her parents thought her to be absolutely out of control (by their high class standards). Syren would sneak out at night with a bag full of her parents' finest liquors — though it was never for her, it was for her friends who wanted to throw a party and get wasted.

Perhaps it was slightly their fault that Syren was the way she was back then; they were prestigious doctors, and were almost never home, leaving Syren and the other Steele children to fend for themselves. It was Syren who took on the role of mother in the household, a responsibility too heavy for a young girl's shoulders.

She used to scream at the top of her lungs until her parents' ears were close to bleeding. When they were home, they would argue almost non-stop.

But everything fell apart when Talia never came home. Everything.

The chaotic side of Syren met a watery grave with her sister. She stopped arguing with her parents, stopped shouting until her throat was sore, stopped stealing booze. Her eyes once shined as if they themselves were stars, but that light was quickly drained away by the grim reality Syren was forced to face. She used to smile all the time, and laugh until she cried.

That all stopped, too.

Something in Syren Steele changed — she hardened, like steel. She became quiet, no longer shouting out in class or bursting out in anger at her parents. When she did laugh or smile, it was with the people she trusted the most. But even then, she couldn't let it all out, let her feelings run wild like they used to. It was just easier that way, to wear a mask and act like it didn't hurt in front of them, the people who stared and whispered, "That's the Steele girl I told you about."

She still went to parties, she always would. She would dance and mingle with others, but at the end of the night, she always found herself wandering in the dark with an empty flask and a stomach full of sloshing water, looking up at the sky and connecting the dots of the constellations.

Before every party, she would go to the convenience store and buy a pack of cigarettes. Syren would never smoke them; she hated the smell. But she would stand on the side walk outside and bring the flame from her lighter up to end and watch it ignite. She'd let it burn for a while, watching the embers and the ashes fall to the ground. It means something to her — of what, she doesn't know, but she just likes to watch the cigarette burn and the ashes fall like gray snow onto the pavement.

When it's time to leave, she'll extinguish it into the ash tray and leave with a pang in her chest, hand in her pocket gripping the flask.