mxviraniā:Ā
āi thought i met them once but then everything changed,ā he answers vaguely, even he doesnāt know if itās the truth or a lie. mxās experience of romantic love has been so abstract from him that the years that have passed cloud every feeling he ever had. the people he loved changed or he changed without them, there is no in between. in this life, he is neither versions of himself that he has been to everyone most recently. heās alive and breathing despite the strange noose he feels around his neck, the organs that struggle to fight against self-inflicted wounds that havenāt even happened yet. maybe this is his karma for leaving the world behind but in all honestly, it was never too much better with him in it.Ā
he doesnāt question her, he just listens to the words that leave her lips and fall upon the cool summer air with the same dark eyes that never change. thereās nothing that concerns him about her narrative, he doesnāt recoil or flinch over the warning signs of a train wreck that might make others move out of the way. he isnāt scared by the fact that she says it should of been her, he isnāt even nervous when she goes on to say it shouldnāt of been him. they had never known each other well but mx had never once wanted to trade his life for another until the accident, after that⦠even now⦠he wished for nothing more than to trade places with one single person who would of made more use of what time he had left. he had thrown it all away and fuck, heād do it all over again. he knew that already.Ā
āmore like a scribble than an ink blot,ā he corrects, a hint of humour in his voice that doesnāt meet his eyes. maybe this is the real him. so tired, so drained by the cards dealt to him and unable to find a way to scramble back to the surface and find something to hold onto that will keep him afloat in the vast ocean that has become his mind by now,Ā āi could never figure out where it started or where it ended, every time i thought i had a grip on this whole living thing⦠i was wrong.ā
...
āYou really like having that air of mysteriousness about you, huh?ā It was a light tease. Brooklyn had no one to be friendly with anymore, the only person she had left was Lillian and their relationship was... different. She was more of her crutch than anything, a reminder that she had to hold on to at least some of her sanity. It had been so long since sheād had someone to joke around with, have conversations with that didnāt revolve around David and her son --- not that this one wouldnāt inevitably end up there, they always did. She studied Mx now, unsure what she was looking for. Depth, maybe. A reason for him to be the way that he was. People always had their reasons.
She hummed in response.Ā āWell, you can turn a scribble into something,ā after a moment of thought,Ā ābut an ink blot is just a stain. You canāt do anything with an ink blot. If you try to use the paper, it just ruins the whole picture. But a scribble, you can change a scribble. You can even erase a scribble.ā She wasnāt sure what she was getting at, she rarely was, but the metaphor made sense to her. It wasnāt supposed to be some inspirational speech or anything. She was really just thinking aloud.
āMe too,ā she admitted, though that probably wasnāt much of a secret. Those who looked at Brooklyn, she knew what they seen. She wasnāt stupid. She wasnāt in denial. They saw a young girl who had lost her mind --- even when she was sure she still had it in her grip. When she spoke, she knew she wasnāt making much sense. She knew that she was distant, that people only saw a daze when they looked in her eyes, she knew she was never seeing what was right in front of her because she was too focused now on the past, or the undecided future, never what was in-between.Ā āEvery time I thought it must have a reason...ā Trailing off, she ended the sentence with a shake of her head. There was no reason to finish it. He knew.Ā āI really thought he was it. My son. I really thought he was the reason for everything that I went through, I thought that everything in my life led me to the moment he was born. And then... he was gone.ā She snapped her fingers, gaze resting on something (nothing) in the distance. āJust like that.ā
















