|| You Came To {Hating} Me Again || [South]

I've always known, but now it comes to light. Lyla is made of steel.

Made. Of. Steel.

I accept this fact and don't dwell on that her skin is much too fragile under my fingers or the halo of bruises that pepper her canvas because it's so hard to think that there's something out there (something with brightly lit uniforms and emotionless eyes) that can shatter steel as if it was nothing but paper. And it hurtshurtshurts that she has to try and explain herself in faltering verbalizations that trip all over themselves, that she has to go and break her own heart by putting it all out there in the open.

I love her too much to be healthy and altogether right, but the quiet desperation in her molten eyes has my own heart cracking just a little bit in return. ”Oh, it’s so good to be home, Jules. That place was horrible and I was so scared and I missed you so much and the things that went on there I can’t even begin to go into but now I’m back and you look so much better than you did and….”

I don't have the heart to tell her that's not right, I've lost weight since you've left because even the thought of eating sent me into a nauseating spiral, can't tell her that I missed you even more because I let it drip all over that pale skin whenever I touch her. While I don't wish to listen to horror stories and knives and pain it will appear eventually and I will be the one to hold her; but for now, I wish to erase the stupor from her bright, bright gaze. "Lyla, shut up."

And all of a sudden there is pressure on my lips as I press in ever closer to her - she tastes of dragonfruit and disjointed reality - while threading fingers through white hair and feeling the murmured mantra die on her tongue. It's not like in fairytales where sparks explode and the stars align but more of a comforting warmth that spreads from point of contact outwards (the sun on my back, Mama's smile, a cat stretching out lazily) and has the ever-present feel of home. I smile into her because this is a new beginning for all of our false starts and burnt endings - I would never go back to the start even if it promised lack of heartache.

Babe, what are you doing, thinking? Just feel. And that's something I'm disturbingly good at; every practiced turn and fold of the arms are an extension of touch, of feel. I move my left arm from their awkward grip on my crutches and thread themselves into her hair, bringing her closer before finally pulling her away. From half lidded eyes and secretive little smiles I trace the contoures of her arm, seeking fingers to tangle with and achieve some sort of grounding.

Yet, I find none.

I allow my eyes to roam down to her right hand and for a minute I don't take in the curled stump of an appendage, watching the flat palm with a degree of incoherency that astounds even myself. For all my inconsistancy with life and general I lovelovelove her and can't bear to put into proper words the fact that there is something brutally wrong with this picture. "Lyla, I don't-- what-- how?" They tie my tongue into nothing but knots but I feel the familiar surge of white-hot panic accompanied by the urge to protect her from (or kill) the ones responsible for this travesty. A lip is clamped firmly between my teeth as I raise the broken hand carefully, fingertips hesitantly ghosting over the bandages that are much too apathetic in all their neutrality.

white is my favourite color, is that okay? it shows how i feel most of the time, like you can paint me anything else. is that okay?

I want to ask who did this to you? or does it hurt? or maybe even do you want my fingers instead? but all I can manage is a choked sound as I bring the narrow stub up to my lips and kiss it gently, eyes watering and muscles shaking and mind repeating a mantra of it'sallyourfaultit'sallyourfaultit'sallyourfault and the fact that I can't find the will to dispell it only further cements it as truth. All thoughts of strength of character and willpower erodes in the face of digits long gone and the tear streaks that travel across her sharp cheekbones (they are much too gaunt and contrast starkly from within her thin flesh, I ache to give whatever muscle I have and build her up again until I am nothing but a skeleton).

Instead I climb into her lap and gently push her down into the bed, cradling her head with both hands and smoothing away salty tracks with utmost care. With every caring motion I am rewriting everything to what it was supposed to be; dusting lips over her skin and trying to lull her into a sense of it's going to be okay .

(First there was a you, and then there was a me; all of a sudden there was an us, and finally a we.)

Even though I want to believe in the rigid, no-nonsense tone of her words, there is always that little voice in the back of my head that murmurs you will never be good enough for her, ballerina. escape with your heart while you can. I attempt to tangle fingers anywhere, anywhere to escape the want to just claw at my own skin and rip out all of these emotions that block my breath and make me feel like glass. So instead I nuzzle my face below the delicate curve of her jaw and try too hard not to cry.

her words warp and twist on themselves and suddenly it is too loud in our little bubble of thoughts and feelings and just everything, it seems we are on the verge of breaking in all these regrets that she can no longer hold close to her chest. There is something in her eyes that scares me, so I run fingers in a motion to lever them shut with gentle insistence.

Sometimes when I'm sad, I like to share. Or maybe when I'm angry (furious, even) or happy. So, I sing.

"don't disturb the Beast, the tempermental Goat,
The Snail, while he's feeding on the Rose
stay frozen, compromise, what I will I am"

It was a song sung years ago, before Panem appeared. I have no illusions that my voice is the best, but the soft edges in these lyrics seem to fit my tone and lend it an air of pained subtlety. A low, sweet but unashamedly woeful melody slips from my lips and wind themselves into her hair, braiding bright beads of song into the bleach blonde.

A part of me just wants to stop thinking because all these conflicting feelings threaten to cave my chest in on itself, to make my head explode with all the pressure against my eyes, but I refuse to swallow the lyrics and drown quietly in the silence that seems much too loud. We have been torn apart and pieced back together in all the wrong ways, but if we try, I think we can manage to adapt. Because that's what we always do, and it's always worked. Why wouldn't it now?

"Bend around the wind
Silently thrown about again
I'm treading so soft and lightly,
Compromising my will, I am"

Downstairs I can hear the beginning of supper being created, all of this so wonderfully normal and benign that it makes my heart stir happily with the scent of home. While I miss Mama terribly with her flowing raven curls and dark eyes (that are so painfully sad these days) and the way she will sit on the porch and look everything like the old woman she should have been thirty years from now (but Father made her age too fast, and she's already to the point of no return) this is where I belong, with Lyla's dragonfruit aroma making itself at home in the back of my skull and blinding blonde hair tracing patterns against alabaster skin.

if this is the end of our pain, then why does my heart hurt so much? I have always had an uncanny instinct for sensing the bad approaching and usually I praise it for shedding the worst of the heartache from my gaze, but right now I just want it all to go away because we've already weathered the storm, right? things can just go back the way they were supposed to, right? and perhaps I am foolish and young and naive to believe in these things that obviously should not exist - but I believe we have deserved a break. A rally to gather our strengths for the trials to come (and believe me, little dancer. there will be many).

"I am, I will, so no longer will I
Lay down, play dead, play your doe
In the headlights locked down, and terrified"

Her lump of a hand feels so very wrong against my fragile skin but I roll with the feelings that push against the backs of my eyes, letting it instead flow into my voice that hums a steady drone inside my sternum. I have always loved to sing - it is my only favored dance of words - because it seems that I am allowed proper eloquence when accompanied by a soft soprano timbre. Gently I kiss away the stars that sparkle in her eyes, never once quieting my low hum that slips from my lips in a practiced melange of slurred notes.

If I could I would tell her that everything is going to be okay, that we will heal and come back stronger than we were before. Instead I hold her like I want to, like I would if I knew how. My hand takes her existing fingers and presses them to the vibrations in my throat and chest, smiling slightly when we feel so very connected. Like we're in our own little universe of selfish wants and hopes and dreams.

"Your deer in the headlights, shut down and horrified when
Push comes to pull comes to shove, comes to step around this
Self-destructive dance, that never would've ended 'til
I rose, I roared aloud here
I will, I am"

As the last notes fade out along with the twilight, I press my nose into the delicate skin of her neck and smile - all babywhite teeth and lasting happiness at finally being allowed some semblance of closure - letting my lips linger for a long time. "We'll be okay, Lyla. I think we can do it."

she got caught by the four on the floor
they picked her up and she never got let down