Relationship Values 7

Being alone can cause illusions. 

My period came crashing the next morning, reminding me of how it felt like to lay in a literal pool of stale blood, staining all the sheets with the same colouring as if it were some modern painting, when in reality it just meant on how screwed I was. I didn’t bother to go downstairs as I just sat there for an hour, staring at the sheets as soon as I cleaned myself on my floor, making it as quiet as possible even if I had known that Jamie had most likely started breakfast. That’s when I pondered lightly about Jack and his entire existence and how come he had fit in so clearly just made me wonder. It felt a bit like pouring acetone all over myself. 

I think with age we become less critical and rebellious, sometimes I’m too sad to care anymore and I just want any happiness old or new just to take me away so that I can at least do something. Hell, that’s why I end up drawing so much, sometimes not even knowing, just scribbling until there’s holes just to find some reasoning behind why am I doing it. Sometimes I can’t do any actions at all, the days become very small and I don’t know how to get the boredom to stop being stuck at my skull as if it were gum. 

In the end I tear the sheets away, not allowing myself to even think of it more, feeling the nostalgia of confusion I had on why had this started happening. I was the youngest in my class to get their period and I hid it, I recall how embarrassed I was and I would make sure to hide it and my friends only found out years later that I had it before anyone else. It was a subject I just wanted to avoid altogether and the thought that this was all a flag to get pregnant eventually was something I didn’t even want to think about.

I knew that Jamie was the man for me, but that didn’t give me any maternity instinct I was supposed to have, instead I just wanted us to continue lying in bed together, doing nothing, flicking through novels, hands in each other’s hair. And somehow I would feel like he had taken the inspiration with him, no matter how much I would drive or walk, I felt lost and it felt more like solitude than anything else. I just felt as if I had been walking towards him and never finding him again. 

And now with my sister hanging on a thread to remind me of other loves and how I had given her up, that was confusing my brain, as I pressed my hair against the empty carcass of the mattress, stripped down and reminding me that every lost love was like splitting your soul again and again, maybe that’s why some people were spinsters so fast. It was just that somehow we run away with our own love and lose it on the way to oh so many people.

There’s always a thousand reasons why you feel like crap and maybe only one why would you be happy. 

And I had to get downstairs to get breakfast with him and life felt dull, even with Jamie besides me, my mood going up and down like a broken thermometer, all my thoughts scattered and dissociating heavily by themselves before multiplying into worries. 

I had to remember that I’m no longer alone, that he was downstairs and it wasn’t a ghost in any way and it wasn’t even that I hadn’t desired. I felt as if the longer I stayed locked in with him having already heard everything, that I was just wasting time even if I had known that there was no way we would somehow enjoy time restless again. 

I ended up deciding to go downstairs and even if I had the opportunity to ask him anything, I decided against it as his earlier smoking was still filling up the air and driving some nostalgic force as I just sat besides him, seeing that he had been waiting for me everything served and the telly on. We didn’t say anything as if we were still married and had a rough night last night where we had both spoken much more than we should've allowed ourselves. But he still stayed over again, not making a big deal out of staying on the couch and I wondered whose questions was he here to satisfy, were they my own or were they his?

I was about to excuse myself, but I just stood up with the mouth opened as he fully locked eyes on me. 

“Morning.” And he had broken the silence, before going back to the television. 

I knew that he had given up all art and I wondered how did that feel to never think of something creative again and think of all the cases and never use them. I wondered. But that was a question to which answer I had known, he had told me that he couldn’t stand thinking if they would be successful or not, while he knew he had been good at law and practice just proved his perfection and that’s all it meant it to him, as he had taken the last bags a day later than he was supposed to move out. I thought we would kiss each other anywhere or that I would say that I’d miss him, but it’s easier to think about it rather than do something, because we never think that life is terminal and that we wouldn’t even be alive soon enough to regret it. I wondered how come my mother’s death was something which instead of showing regret of her death ended up in a reminiscence of my oldest lovers. 

We started eating in silence and I wondered how long had he been waiting, it would be a while before we would split everything up and he could leave, but he wasn’t. I also couldn’t help but wonder about the Jack fellow. I wondered how long have they been together and was he the one petting Archie to calm down? But then he would tell me if Jack had been over, I guess. I feel odd asking the same question again as I notice Jamie staring at me as I chew the toast slowly. 

“Do you have anyone?” He decided to ask out of the blue, leaving me out to just savor the odd question like a long lost dream. 

“Does it look like I even have anyone?” I smirk, wondering if he hadn’t noticed my roots. I bite into the toast again. “Why are you asking?”

“Because you asked me about Jack last night.” The thought that he had even bothered to recall the conversation gives me a high schooler’s hope, but instead I just stare back and it seems like we will be stuck giving each other looks and stares, as if remembering in case we would never see each other again, which is surely not even close to the case. The case being the decision of who gets which property. 

“That’s fair.” I say, finishing the toast but he still holds his silence, as if I would have any answer to reply to it. And it’s as if that’s all we have to say. It feels as if the days in the house will be long since neither of us suggests of going outside, something to what we have done in the past, but you can never throw the same box of paint twice for it to fall the same way. It’s as if we both know that being the same house would cause drama if we open our mouths. It’s far too early for anything to even open up properly and I wonder if I had woken up due to his rummaging the kitchen without asking. I wondered if it was sad that nothing had changed since he moved out and I wondered how did his apartment look like. I imagined it being a mess, but now looking at him all tidy, I wondered if he had twisted his arm enough to actually being tidy around his house. “No, I’ve been single.”

I don’t add all these years because that feels a bit pathetic to be very honest. I just remain silent after that and I take the remote, figuring that maybe even going out for a coffee would do me good, then maybe he’d be inclined to leave before tomorrow we’d have enough to do. I wonder if staying over, or rather, I hope, is just a method to see how much I love the house and won’t be leaving it. 

I end up smoking all the way as I drive, after excusing myself, thanking dear life that I hadn’t drank coffee with him, my mind bursting with different images as I quickly sketch on a red light against the steering wheel, looking behind me, knowing that it’s too early for anyone’s sunday to go berserk for any reason at all. I end up getting out the car, wondering if I could even run into Lana again, since life is much more complex than a doll house where some kid just stirs more and more drama until it’s a soap opera, but then every life can be a novel no matter how boring it may seem to one, because by the end of it we all go through the same things of loss and love just in different ways. 

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I quite like Alison's narrative in this story and I get a big kick writing it. I know, I say many positive feelings about my stories. I'm also thrilled that I managed to keep my two day rule even if I'm dying to sleep now xD and I started it a bit earlier, the binging and kind of went through yesterday and today so that was naturally helpful. Also I've been obsessively listening to Lana's Honeymoon on repeat.

I'm also having Kills withdrawal because I need that new album and I went through a few Kills songs earlier in the evening and even watched The Last Goodbye video for inspiration on this scene.

Okay, rundown of the chapter.

These days I really just binge, because through out the day I have horrid anxiety so there's not that much which inspires me, it's just me and my thoughts. What inspired me a lot was watching The Dead Weather's Alison lyric inspiration video and I knew from just watching it that I'd steal her driving and steering wheel idea for something and here is where it went really xD

I'm stuck bleeding (I prefer that word to avoid dysphoria) so I stuck to my write what you know best, since it's quite hard these days for me to start writing and it's not like anything really changed, because I still nag about what's going on in my head, even if these days there's really no love drama and neither can I say that I've been musing on exes or anything, so my love life is quite settled with Callie and I have no other partners or anything from love interests, so sorry if it's not as fun, I try to think stuff with my mind xD

I think it's easier with age, at least for me to enjoy things, like now I get a kick out of trash tv or I'm getting a kick out of the new Twilight but then I used to be Twilight trash xD so that was an observation I got down or maybe I'm just too depressed these days and it's easy for me to find something enjoyable at times. 

I actually was the first one in my class to be stuck with it and I was awfully embarassed and I hid it, so yeah, ah, dysphoria in my puberty.

I do have a father instinct if you must since I met Callie. So it's different from Alison's but I grew up never wanting to get pregnant so I stuck that in and regarding love as well for Alison. 

I love writing androgynous characters, I really get a kick, I really do xD

My mind goes really blank these days when I'm depressed and it's hard to think about stories, so I gave that to Jamie. 

I really love this story and in the beginning it was my way to cope with the end of Poison the Rose and it grew into something else and that is beautiful ahhaha xD anyway, I just really love it

If you liked it please tell me so:)

Thank you

<3

Jamie