ivy watson }} ten }} fin

I never saw a problem with just being myself. Spittin' out the first words that came to mind, smiles and sobs torn from loose lips because what is the point in hiding everything you've ever been? Adorning a mask for the sake another is to cripple yourself, to stick a butter knife deep into your flesh and sit and watch as the blood pools around the soles of your shoes. Suffering tastes like forced smiles and matching socks. Because if I cannot be loved for who I am, there's no point lovin' at all.

But that was easy to say when love was unconditional. I've never been the greatest judge of character, Papa says it's 'cause I'm too trusting. Born with the eyes of a doe and its perpetual naivete. And I told him to stop using big words because I was only seven and couldn't understand them yet. I can't say that I understand 'em much better now, but at least I understand what he was trying to do. What pain and suffering I could have avoided had I just heeded the excessively worded advice.

'Cause I was never the fasted reader, see? Words took some time to fly off the page and into my head but I always got the message. Sometimes they just got lost when they were travelling from ears to eyes to brain, caught up on pretty flowers or more interesting topics. Papa would always tie red ribbons 'round my lunch bags because that way he knew I'd never lose track of them. Red was my favorite color. The deep, ruby kind of red that ain't as dark as blood but ain't bright enough to hurt your eyes.

And I loved tying my hair up with ribbons even though I wasn't real good at it and sometimes it stuck up in weird ways that made my hair look kind of like a lion's mane. That was okay cause Mama said I looked like the prettiest lion in the pride and I think I smiled for three whole hours after she told me that. My cheeks started achin' and everything but I just couldn't stop.

I remember what it was like, having one home instead a' two. When mama didn't have Daryl and Papa didn't have Austin and instead they had each other and they had me too. We were like a perfect family, ready for a white picket fence and a happy ending but I guess they wasn't as happy with each other as I was with them. I always kinda blamed myself, thought I didn't make 'em feel as loved as I should.

But I know Papa hurt Mama when he cheated on her with Austin and I know she only married Daryl to get back at him. I 'member how scary it was, right after Papa broke it off and I'd come home to empty bottles of wine and have to hold back Mama's hair as she puked into our toilet. An' there was that one time when things got real bad and she brought back a big scary guy whose fist accidentally collided with my eye. We tried to cover it up real good with makeup but Papa still freaked out when he saw it an' I started living with him and Austin full time after that.

I get to see Mama on the weekends though, so its okay.

They both still love me, and so do Daryl an' Austin. It's kind of like having two really dysfunctional families all tied up with one big red bow. I'm more okay with it now than I was a few years back, when I used to sit with my head on Priscilla's shoulder and cry for a good couple hours. All 'cause I was selfish and didn't want Mama and Papa to be happy without me. Or maybe 'cause I was scared at how reckless Mama was actin', or worried that Papa could fall outta love with me like he did with Mama. Maybe a mix of all three.

But I really don't like thinkin' about her now. It makes my heart ache, a kind that I can't really ignore 'cause it takes up all the empty space. There ain't a pretty flower in the world that can stop me thinking about Priscilla. Stop this cocktail of anger 'n sadness 'n embarrassment that always stirs up inside me when I get to thinking about how perfect she still is.

I'm bad at hiding my emotions. At stopping laughter bubbling out my lips at bad times all 'cause I got to thinking about this funny thing that happened three years ago or stopping tears that always seem to sear through my chest, fill my lungs up to bursting and I can't stop them 'cause otherwise I'm gonna explode. I don't kinda feel nothin'. It's intense, hot or cold, gripping at my skin with golden talons and peeling away at any composure I might possess.

My heart ain't simply on my sleeve, just about everything else is sewn there too.

Sometimes I wish that our friendship meant as much to me as it did her, that is to say that it meant nothing at all. That I could just forget about the hours we used to spend together. Not really sayin' anything, simply enjoying each other's company or talking about nothing. Looking back on it all, with eyes torn open by angry words and bitter regrets, perhaps everything is shrouded in sepia tones because I was too stupid to realize she wasn't happy. Just like Mama and Papa weren't. I was too caught up in the ecstasy that was her presence I forgot to stop and ask if she loved me too.

'Cause now I know the answer is no.

That's okay though, I don't need a best friend that ain't Suvi. The cutest fennec this side of the district, one of the few lives I managed to save before Mama and Papa broke up and we lost the big barn where I treated all the woodland creatures I found. Our veterinarian was always the sweetest, lettin' me watch as she treated our horses and giving me tips and trick I bet she didn't know I was utilizing on the squirrels and rabbits I'd found mauled in the forests.

They hardly ever made it, but I guess that's because I'm drawn to lost causes. The smallest an' the weakest aren't ever meant to survive. As brutal of a truth as that was, I knew that even if they died they'd be dyin' for a good cause. That they'd get a proper home 'neath the soil in our sunflower fields after Priscilla had drained all the knowledge she could from their scattered brains.

Suvi is evidence of miracles, see? She was justa kit when an owl got hold of her, tearing her away from her litter and leaving her stranded and broken. There were puncture wounds in her side, a leg that was all sorts a' broken and mangled. I was so used to losing my patients that when I gathered her up in my arms I assumed that she'd just be another test subject. A morbid kind of gift.

But I've never met a kit more determined, eatin' all her food and fighting off infection. She got better, she got better real fast and refused to leave my side. Begging for the bits of meet I kept in a little plastic baggie for her, finding her way to my doorstep and cryin' whenever I tried to return her to the forest. Really, I had no choice but to keep her. She's loyal, stayed with me for years now.

That's a trait I've yet to find in a human friend.

People must think I'm stupid, that I don't know I'm the laughing stock of the school when they point out my outfits an' act like they're some kind of genius for making jabs at just how unusual they are. As though it matters to me what they think of something I molded for myself, a creation that was only ever meant to make me feel good. I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt, but it sure as hell doesn't hurt enough for me to change.

I started goin' to bars when I turned sixteen. I was stupid and desperate and figured I'd find friends within the warm buzz that mama so often sought right after papa left. That she still seeks almost every weekend I'm visiting. Sometimes I still gotta hold her hair back but Daryl usually does that now.

Alas, friends are not what hid within those oaken walls. Instead, there were lovers. Temporary ones with those ruby red lips that stain my neck with smeared paint and she's so drunk she don't care how out of place I am. And I'm so drunk that I don't care how boring she is. Mutually assured destruction, ain't that what it's called?

I don't do that often, though, only when the loneliness gnaws at my insides and turns them into painful knots or when I see her at school and she's still so lethal and pretty and so happy without me.

Maybe even happier than when she was with me.

But that's alright 'cause I got Suvi, whose love ain't conditional. Who doesn't care if others make fun of the way I dress or who I am. Who ain't gonna make me change for nobody and if she's all that I have 'til the day I die then I'll die a happy woman.








But I'm such a bad liar.