a time loop. this is how they had been at every party previous. her, sitting on some counter, not thinking about the mess her shoes would make on it. them, standing in the corner, doing nothing to be a part of the crowd, but rather a phantom observing. nothing had changed and yet everything had changed. they were both the same as they had been all those years ago, but new people completely, experiences transforming them into something unrecognizable. one of the many contradictions of life, making it impossible for anything to ever, truly mean something because nothing was static, yet nothing ever moved. they could say they changed, but they’d never really change.
“what did you want? what did you want that’s not me?” the one thing they couldn’t give. the one thing they truly owned in life was themselves. even that was questionable as their actions were dictated by what everyone else was doing. if no one threw a party, they wouldn’t go to a party.
delphine and samson had been fast friends. meeting one balmy summer, night. the heat in the air infected their veins and they were frantic and frenzied and feverish. they had been almost inseparable. well, until they had become distant strangers. they had fallen into a pattern, where they trailed after delphine like her shadow, finding it easy to let her take charge and to speak for the both of them. it was a shame things had to crumble, turning into dust scattered by the same summer breeze that had pushed them together in the first place. eyes stuck on the ground, lips pursed out was the best answer they could give. “there is no reason to waste a breath on guilt. with what little time we have here, it will only drag you under. the world is cruel enough without the added weight.”
they didn’t hate her, but it was hard to say if they missed her. people came and went in life. there was no point in trying to grasp at something that would never be. and so they moved on — a clean break — making the decision for the both of them. making things easier for the both of them. they didn’t look at her as she moved around, still used to her wild energy. they just tucked themselves further into their sweatshirt as if to serve as a barrier. “you need to let go of this anger. you’ve always been so angry. what good has it done you?” deflecting as always.
samson doesn’t flinch at her warm breath in their face and the familiarity makes her lurch. she remembers how they’d learned to steel themselves around her. find normalcy in the composure she lacks, unblinking at the words she spits out. a blank face when she tells too much. she longs to grab their shoulders. knuckles white on their arms, nails dug into their skin past their shirt, anything — anything to make samson feel, no matter how fleeting, the iciness that had made its home in the well of her stomach the moment she realised she’d confessed the wrong words.
“yeah, yeah, you’re right,” the words flatten with the precision of a surgeon, “didn’t know what i wanted. i might’ve wanted you like i want new shit that makes me bored a week later. or uh, oh, i know. how you love someone when you realise they’re not gonna disappear the minute they know you. something in life that won’t fuck you over.”
her voice threatens to break for good now, even behind the guise of wanting another gulp of the drink she raises to her lips. there’s a point where she steps back again, a keen jolt of pain in her lower spine as it carelessly impacts with the kitchen counter and she inhales a breath harsh enough to whistle slightly, desperate to level herself. the weakness reveals itself to them once more. she wonders how long it might be until they’re gone; leave her with the odd sensation of sitting numbly on the carpeted floor in her childhood home that marks her palms and knees hotly, the loneliness that she urges to tear out, humiliation that burns and pricks behind her eyes. a grief for them she’d never allowed herself to settle in.
“you know what real cruelty is, too.” in the din of the party — one she momentarily forgets until her stare returns to them — her voice is near inaudible. any louder, she’ll begin to crumble. something stronger is a nice idea and delphine turns her back to them, rifles through the cabinets and unearths cheap wine, ignores that it’s been opened, the bottle adorned by a film of dust. she winces at a tart mouthful of it. “i let things go easy. we were friends long enough to know. but i couldn’t forgive you,” the open neck of chardonnay tilts to point at them, “couldn’t do it. guess all that did was never let me forget you, either. you didn’t even call me after. you were just gone.”
palms slick and fingers clumsy, the bottle careens to the ground in a deafening shriek when she adjusts to say something more. disconcerted by the garish sight of a glass worth of red wine on her feet, spattered up her ankles and onto her pants, it forces up warm tears onto the front of her shirt. the back of her hand meets her cheek in a rush, frantic to mask the damp streaks that run lines down her face. “how you looked at me then was all i had left.”
