rainbow road || arx
Sept 22, 2020 1:32:23 GMT -5
Post by brad bradford ★ d5 [arx] on Sept 22, 2020 1:32:23 GMT -5
justice fray.
It's a dance we've done a thousand times—two steps too close, one step back, smile, blush, another two steps too close, set it all on fire, watch it burn at thirty steps apart, meet in the ash, repeat. Our disasters were more tempestuous than a hurricane and more fervent than a wildfire, but we were standing on an island in the eye of a storm. From where we stood it was all just devastatingly beautiful.
We've never tried this without the disaster. Never stood so close and expected things to work out, never smiled without noticing the ring on the other's hand, never held each other without standing in a shroud of shadows. Were we always meant to end? Were we always meant to fall apart only to start it all over again?
It could be different this time. At least that's what I'm telling myself now—as I stand two steps too close.
I'm laughing, shaking my head in disbelief. "You did not get fired," I say as I walk past her to the bag supposedly filled with the spoils of freedom.
Apparently she got fired.
I pull out a box before turning toward her with more concern slipping into my expression than I had intended. I could feel it in the knit of my brows and set of my jaw, but the thing about Poppy was she was always so good at making everything else disappear. Frustration, guilt, pain, worry—they all faded the instant I met her gaze. Whiskey has always been my vice, but Poppy sure was one hell of a drug.
"Hell yeah we're celebrating," I nod, raising the box above my head in true alcoholic fashion before tearing the cardboard apart.
"I've done this like, a million times," which is a lie, but I'd seen Bambi and Sardonyx do this before and Petelia always seemed to have a new color when I saw her, and clearly Poppy knew how to do it, so really how hard could it be?
Besides, it can't really go worse than my knitting project.
"But, y'know, everyone has a different routine," I say, shrugging, pushing aside what was left of my abandoned card trick and furniture refinishing hobbies. "So maybe you just tell me how you like to do it. So you don't think I'm screwing it up if I learned the different way, of, hair or whatever."
I'm compensating for lack of knowledge with hand gestures and a smile. Hoping it's enough of a distraction, knowing full well it's not.
But hey, at least it keeps her from finding my knitting needles.
"you're the reason i believe in fate, you're my paradise."