qui vivra verra, billie.

isabelle sing ;

And I'm looking through a window at what I could have had, the jealousy a new kind of sin I've never felt before. A boy and his brother and his sister in a beautiful house with all the money in the world. Never having to dig up a grave again, I put us in their places: Vati in the kitchen, myself cooking by the stove, Andorra stirring in the doorway.

Then I look down and there's soil buried underneath my fingernails, and I hate--

It is excruciating, to hate oneself. But hunger hurts more. I refused after Andy died, Vati just said he wouldn't be compensating no more. Sixteen, I should learn how to fend for myself. I laid in my bed for days with my arms wrapped around my stomach and my whole body begged me to commit sin.

Night six, blotches in my vision with a head-rush. I stood on two feet, grabbed a shovel from the back porch, and followed Vati into the night. Couldn't vomit up nothing so I doubled over and retched when we opened the first casket, learned my lesson the hard way to bring a bandana and a pack of peppermint gum next time.

I ate, though. I ate and ate and ate and my body panicked, thankful to be fed but still at war with my mind. I got down on my knees and begged for forgiveness, washed it all away with guilty tears. Grave robbing ain't the life I wanted, but something absolutely insane inside of me still wants a life in this terrible world. I think it's the thing inside me that was inside of Andorra. Hungry. Famished.

Qui n’avance pas, recule.¹

My stomach grumbles and I look up, they're not in the kitchen anymore.

There's always one grave we don't touch. We don't go near there anymore. I liked digging their graves, carrying on Andorra's tradition in the dead of the night. Digging graves is always better than digging bodies back up, thought there wouldn't be anything worse than it.

Then Avriel Baptiste won, and I had to fill it in.

I could've filled in Andorra's, y'know? We could have done it together. Filled in the hole but the gaping one in me stayed empty and I became obsessed, hyper-fixating on a life we could of had if that Caleb girl hadn't betrayed him.

I hate--

I hate.

I'm distracted, then hyper-aware. Because I'm standing in the garden of the Victor's Village and there's someone standing behind me.

Merde.

Hands up, slowly now, I turn to face atonement.

1. "Who does not move forward, recedes."