.:Alternate Consciousness:. {Ele/Rook}

Everyone else is long gone home, study group ended ages ago and the library is empty of sound, showing no signs of life but my cheeks are stained black and the ends of my sweater sleeves too and i wish i had my mother's sweater on because her scent could have been a comfort but she isn't here anymore and my brother says i should stop moaning over her but i can't help being a mama's boy though i think he hates me for it because i was also a father's girl and so where is the room for him? he yelled at me today when he found the fresh made dress i'd tucked into a kitchen cabinet where i didn't think he'd notice because i barely let him in there because all he does is burn water and make messes but he did and he wanted to know when i'd made it and when i told him that i hadn't gone to class today he'd been so mad and it was worse than when dad was mad because my brother looked disappointed too, so now I'm here at the library and it is dark and i am cold.

i can't remember how to stand up anymore as my legs have turned to jelly and it is getting darker and darker and there was a note on my basement door from Andorra asking where i'd been all day and somehow even though she wasn't mad about it i could feel disappointment too but i'd sort of hoped that no one would notice my absence because i don't stick out much if i don't want too, besides, i'm pretty sure they're all used to me by now. i didn't go to school today because i promised the buyer i'd get that dress done and if i wanted to get payed i had to get it to them by tomorrow but my brother screeched he said he's throwing his young life away so i can get an education and that's how i repay him? but i was just trying to help i can't do much else.

my cheeks feel sticky under my fingertips and i promised myself i wouldn't cry for silly reasons but i feel like everything is crumbling down on my head, and the worst part is, i'm lonely

i'm very very very lonely and i really would like someone to hold but there isn't that person for me because people i become interested in don't get interested back because mostly they just get confused because what the fuck even am i? what am i, i don't know. i don't have a chest, but i'm small like a girl and i am pretty too and i know that because last year i won library princess in the vote and there is a prince category but i guess they forgot about that. even if niko didn't already have it from every single girl he ever even flirted with voting for him and i can't talk because i voted for him too and if andorra knew i was in the library right now she'd have my head because it's closed for the afternoon because of reasons that i forgot and i probably left the front door unlocked, whether that's a silent plee for someone to come looking for me or me actually being forgetful i cannot remember but on the other hand i hope no one finds me here because i probably look a wreck with this mascara running down my cheeks and i am trying to wallow but if this were a movie my romantic love interest would storm the front gates and they'd be dripping with rain and they'd call for me and i'd run for them but i've never been kissed in ways that count and the last person who touched me in that way is long gone and i don't think he's ever coming back and it's my fault, everything is my fault but that's okay i've come to accept that.

I sit with my back against a wall between two rows of books and it's my favourite section which is typed plains full of world history and atlases of places i will never see but wish i could because i would like to go and walk the great wall of chine-ah or see a painting by vincent can gogh and i would like to walk through crowds of bustling people in the streets of los angeles and even visit my father's namesake and go to central park but all those photos are faded and i am too and that's why this is my aisle because the world and i never really had a chance, nature was against us since day one and that's why i sew dresses and i cook and i study instead of working as a sheep shearer like my brother because i am the girl which brings me to fate

because if there is a red string of fate then where is mine and why can't i find it? i can't help thinking that mine got cut in the middle and the one that is attached to my finger leads nowhere so i'll just keep following it until i reach a frayed end and then i'll know because anomalies like me probably don't get happy endings and it was fate that brought me here to this library and fate that keeps me here because i have nowhere else to be alone without knowing my brother is across the hall still fuming and it's even worse if he's not and he's gone out for a drink with his friends because we're tight on money but he only goes once a month and i won't begrudge him that but then i know where he is and he's becoming a monster just like dad and i can't help getting afraid so i have a bed of carpet with a blanket of pages and i am alo-

there is a bang as the front doors are thrown open and i cringe, covering my eyes with one slender hand because i know i left it unlocked and andorra will actually skin me alive becasue i'm not supposed to have a key but she gave me one because she knew i really needed it and now there is someone else in the library so i'll have to pretend like it's fine or just hide and wait for them to leave but what if they steal a book- oh god no andorra will somehow know and she'll hate me- so quickly i rub underneath my eyes and stand up, straightening my hair, pulling on my sweater, recreating a vision of perfection once more, there my makeup is barely smudged, so i move into the hall and stare at the figure in the door from across the way, mustering up all my courage to say, "Sorry, we're closed," and i can't help cringing at the crack in my voice from the lack of speech other than the crying.

I swallow, trying to clear my throat, to relinquish the tight hold that silence has on it so that when i speak again i don't sound so stupid because i can already feel my cheeks begin to burn at how weak i sound and i've never wanted to appear weak even though it seems to be unavoidable with me like my mother always said i was her little china doll. For my father weakness was always a sin but it was one that he let grow in me because maybe for him i wasn't just a doll and to him I was something else entirely wrong and here i am bound and blindfolded in a future that wasn't meant to be because my daddy left us all alone because he was too weak too and weakness is disgusting. So I swallow, i clear my throat and i wipe away the the last bit of black smudged under my eyes so that whne i glare at him i won't look horribly ridiculous

i stand still, umoving now watching as he takes the knife from it's holder like it's no big deal that he's just come in and is now threatening me and i can't help thinking that he must be a child to just wave a knife around so carelessly, you'd have to be an idiot. I take him in, the darkness under his eyes and within like a slow maniacal laughter building up from the gut and it seems to me that he's got a cement block pushing down his shoulders and if he's not atlas than i'm not sure how long he will be able to withstand the weight of all that stone, so one half of me wants to send him flying out the door with a kick and the other half wants to give him some tea and a blanket because he's dripping wet and i'm worried that a breeze might push him over but i have never been the type to be incredibly accommodating, well I used to be i guess but things have changed a little bit and I'm not the same boy i was because i don't even know what the hell i am anymore so

glancing at the knife, i'm really hoping my gaze is as cold as most say it is and i turn up the internal intensity by a few notches too, although annoyed by this intruder I'm still glad he's here to distract me from my brother and yet he somehow pisses me off like how a dog would piss off a cat just by being in it's general vicinity. So i gaze at him and then at then at the knife held in his hands ignoring the threat so obviously that it's almost like a complimentary slap with entrance to the library. "Stay if you'd like," and my voice comes out smooth as silk, i almost smile in triumph because if the pen is mightier than the sword i think words are mightier than a knife, "But stop waving your little prick at me, it's laughable." Stepping forward, I walk slowly past him, watching him carefully as i do, expression calm and clear because i cannot show fear and even if i could in a situation like this i'm not sure i remember how to be afraid anymore but my eyes still go to the knife in it's sheath and i wonder if it is stained with blood or if it's never even been used?

i lock the doors with a resounding click and then feel wrong about it because i knew i was supposed to lock them before and i've never been in the library alone with a stranger, i wonder if i have to teach him about the books and how to loan them or if he knows already and i can't help wondering what happened to my panic earlier when i heard someone enter how resolved i was to make them leave but even a cat wouldn't kick a wet mutt i can't help thinking. Turning around, i look at him and wonder if he actually chose to go to the library today because he doesn't even look the sort he looks like the type who should be punching people in the street or whatever it is people do these days.

and I can't help thinking about the way his gaze seemed to rest right on me when he looked at me just then, one hand on the hilt of his knife why that changed my mind, it's not that i was afraid of him because to be honest i think there's only one thing i'm afraid of anymore- a tie resting on a bedside table, glasses askew- and he doesn't wear glasses but something in those eyes just told me that he could draw blood if he wished it but i still wasn't afraid? Studying him carefully, i lean against the door and study his movements because i don't talk to people a lot i guess and he's throwing me off because he doesn't seem to care at all. "Who are you," i don't ask, because it's not like i'm all that curious or at least i pretend not to be because i am indifferent, at least i tell myself that.