annabel verbena | d12 | fin

A broken headlamp rests on the table. I stand up straight, and every tendril of hair drapes down from my head. Whorls of wood I trace my finger over, eighteen years within these walls committing every knothole to memory.

Nothing changes in this house. It's all picture-peaceful.

I imagine strong arms wrapped around me picking me up and setting me down somewhere different. Dark hair weaving through my fingers as we hold a piece of toast to the new fireplace. A Seam boy with an unknown face meeting my gaze, sparks fluttering between our hearts.

Sweet Ripred I'm such a hopeless romantic.

No candlelight dinners because wax is too precious to waste, but we'd tear morsels of food and stuff them into each other's mouths, and huddle together on the cold days of winter, and there's a beauty in even threadbare blankets and tesserae-bread when you're in it together.

Ma says on the hollow days it's her love for Pa and us that's the only thing keeping her going. They were the perfect fairytale childhood sweethearts, marriage and toasting and kids straight out of school.

She says I'll know it when I see it, but as much as I like the idea I haven't ever met a boy like she describes. Or a girl like that, for that matter. I've never met someone I wanted to drag into an alley like I see the other girls at school doing - except perhaps the boys I create in my imagination.

I don't want to grow old alone.

There's a beauty in broken things and a beauty in sadness. Even when the Seam is coated in coal dust and gray snow it still looks pretty.

Maybe I'm sad and broken and pretty just like that winter scenery.

I still want a happy ending.