User blog:Promestein/Starcross - Bloom

EQUINOX carefully pulls down on the collar of her shirt, anxiety driving her teeth into her tongue as the bruises creep into view. Maybe it’s best not to refer to this in the plural, actually. It was one big splotch of ugly purple and red that blossomed across her throat, the imprints of Alice’s fingers still visible. Up until a few hours ago, the whites of her eyes had been bright red. Apparently that happened because strangling pushed the blood up into there. It’s a pretty gruesome thought, and EQUINOX can’t get the sight of her reflection from a couple of hours ago out of her head.

She lets go of her collar, wincing when her shirt snaps back against her neck. The pain is only an annoyance, though it’s still not pleasant. It’s hardly the worst of EQUINOX’s concerns. She sighs, and stares at herself in the mirror for a long time, keeping her breaths slow, gentle, and steady. It doesn’t do much to help, but it’s better than the on-and-off hyperventilating that’s consumed the past few hours of her life. Unwilling to look at herself any longer, EQUINOX flicks the light switch, casting the room into darkness, and though she tells herself to go back to bed, her body doesn’t move.

Instead, for a minute, for five minutes, for ten, she stands there, in the darkness, and feels sorry for herself. Denial only goes so far. Even though she tells herself it’s her fault, that she deserves this, here, alone, in the dark, Alice can’t control her every thought. So EQUINOX knows, here and now, that she doesn’t deserve this. But there’s not much she can do about it, is there? Though she may be alone and obscured by the shadows of the unlit bathroom, EQUINOX cannot bring herself to think that big. There’s nothing she can do, and that’s simply a fact.

After sighing, EQUINOX steps out of the bathroom, looking over in the direction of her and Alice’s bed. Alice is asleep, her back turned. She’s snoring, a little. If she had been awake, EQUINOX wouldn’t have been able to sneak into the bathroom for some privacy. So it’s a small blessing. Small because she can’t really get anything out of Alice right now if she’s asleep. No apologies, or anything. Alice can’t even hold her gently, so that EQUINOX can lie to herself and go back to thinking everything will be alright.

That hasn't worked in a long time, though.

EQUINOX crawls into bed, and, after a moment of hesitation, scooches over to Alice, pressing her back against hers. It’s too much to face her like this, and to only see her back? It’s not exactly calming. But EQUINOX feels like Alice will be angry if she wakes up and sees that EQUINOX is too far away. It’s just a feeling she has. She’s not sure if it’s particularly grounded in reality or not - it feels laughable to fear something like that, but at the thought of crawling a few inches away, her body freezes up.

For whatever reason, she’s afraid.

Maybe, after everything, it would be weirder if she wasn’t afraid?

What does it matter? She's scared.

The wall isn’t much better company than Alice’s back. In the darkness of the room, the patterns on it twist themselves into mirages. Shapes come and go into an abyss. None of them mean anything. There isn’t anything to divine from it. It’s only mildly unsettling. EQUINOX stares, blinks, stares a little bit longer, and then closes her eyes and shoves her face into her pillow. She doesn’t cry. The tears just don’t come.

But, eventually, she falls asleep.