this blog is about hyperfixations & love.

Venus looked her over and shook her head. “Am I dreaming?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“I don’t think so,” Lou said, but she’d been wrong before. If they were in Venus’s dream, Lou hoped that she’d wake up soon. 

“I dreamed about you. All the time,” Venus said. Lou pulled her aching knees up so that Venus could sit back on the couch. “The longer it’d been, the worse they got. At first, somebody would come back from the wastes with a single little red boot, or a checked bra, or a little bitty calf bone that I just knew was yours.”

She stared up into space as she spoke, and shuddered. Lou drew the blanket up under her armpits. It felt strange to be inside, especially in such a heavily decorated space, after being away for so long. The walls loomed on either side of them and kept the air still. The curtains didn’t so much as twitch.

“Then, you started coming back, but you weren’t right. You’d show up at my door just after sunset, your hat pulled low over your eyes. And I could never get you to smile, even to talk. You would be pale and languid and gaunt, and then I’d notice that you wouldn’t come inside, and you had blood around your mouth and under your nails, or you’d have no feet, or you’d just be gone again when I turned back, and I wouldn’t know if I was dreaming or not.”

Lou looked down at her bloody-looking fingertips.