#bvcarnival

Sighing softly, Lena pushed her way through the canvas tarp into the booth labeled ‘Nostalgia’. She was in no means ready for what her eyes focused on the moment she stepped inside. Covering the walls was everything from old, browning polaroids of her earliest years to fresh new photographs of important events within the past year. Heart clenching slightly at the sight of photos of herself with little Luna, caused her to stop and really look at the photographs in front of her and their every detail. She stopped at a photograph of her younger self curled in the arms of a beautiful young blonde. Delilah. It had been over a decade since she had last seen the girl, but she still had the same effect over Lena. Quickly without meaning to, Lena reached out grasping the photo.

Immediately it was as she was being pushed into a swirling vortex pulling her in deeper and deeper into a massive black hole. And then it was over, and she was – well she didn’t know what exactly was going on. She was in Delilah’s room, but she couldn’t quite figure out what her perspective was. One moment it was as if she was reliving the memory, but at the same time, she was watching the whole event play itself out.

Her hair smelled exactly as it had all those years ago. Sweet. A mixture of strawberries and vanilla. Her skin, soft and loving against the freshly bruised skin of Lena. Her body ached to be closer. She just longed to hold her – to feel her soft lips against her own. Doing that would go against everything they had known and had been taught. That would be it. There would be no going back from there. But there was something so innocent about the way that Delilah held her broken body and the way that she whispered words of comfort into her ear. Lena’s body trembled slightly against the blonde’s, their noses and foreheads pressed flushed against one another.

“You can’t keep letting him do this to you.” The other girl’s fingers gently combed through Lena’s thick, dark hair. “I can’t lose you.” Her voice was breaking down, tears were beginning to flow. “Please. Let’s run away together. You and me. Just like we always talked about.” She didn’t really want that did she? “You’re my best friend, my family. Please, Lena.”

The room was pitch black aside from the dim moonlight trickling through the window, casting shadows on the girl infront of her. Her heart clenched. It wasn't supposed to be this hard. She had watched all the boys and girls around her laugh and love painlessly. Friends and couples would breakup, but within a week or two, new ones would be formed or they would be back together again. But not them. No, they had to practically hide their friendship out of fear that they would be ripped apart by their families. If he knew just how close she was to Delilah – if he knew how she truly felt for her... There was no sense dwelling on it. It wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it happen.

Lena watched with a pained expression on her face as she watched her younger self attempt to comfort the blonde. She thought she had forgotten the bitter sting of her last love. But each time she looked down at the shadow of her former self, she saw bullets ripping through the girl’s chest just as they had all those years ago. But this wasn’t that memory. Not yet at least. In this moment, she knew they could still muse about the future they’d have together. If only they knew. If only she’d known.

She clung to the fabric of the blonde’s shirt as if this would bring her any closer. Her eyes were such a dazzling blue – they practically sparkled compared to Lena’s dark, stormy irises. It was the last thought on her mind before she finally broke the barrier between the two of them. It wasn’t some large over done kiss like in all the romance movies. There were no fireworks. There lips didn’t crash into each other for them to then grasp at each other in a frenzied craze. Her initial thought was the warmth that took over her body. It wasn’t desire by any means. It was like the feeling of stepping outside on the first day of spring after a long winter – the sun warming your skin. It was comfort. It was safe. Delilah’s lips, slightly chapped, pressed gently and cautiously against Lena’s. Neither knew what they were doing, and neither cared. Fingers reached out, grazing over each other’s cheeks. 

And then it was over. And they were lying there, staring at each other – each with a small smile playing on their lips.

Her curiosity took over and before she knew what she was doing, her hand was on the door into the booth, and she was stepping inside. For a moment she thought that she was going blind. Everything was white – a bright white that burned her eyes as she tried to adjust to the new lighting compared to the dirty grey of the sky outside. Her body quivered slightly – the feeling of warmth suddenly coming over her. And then her eyes slowly gave way to the light and she could see. Clouds. Clouds covered the entirety of the booth – something which seemed to dissipate now that she was here. Priscilla could no longer even see the entrance or exit – instead she was just floating in utter oblivion.

Something which would have previously terrified her now sent her into a fit of giggles. The idea that she was stuck among the clouds was hilarious to the girl. The room seemed to shimmer around her with the light bouncing off the clouds casting various rainbows around her. Had it just rained? She began to laugh again thinking about how silly the idea was considering she was technically indoors – that was at least until she saw them.

Small particles of color had begun to draw together before her eyes, and then before she knew it they were forming into a celestial like body, then two bodies. Her breath caught in her throat as she realized who these creatures were – her parents. She should have begun to sob and cry. The people whom she had craved to see before her, the people she begged for each night to just walk into her front door were now here, and all she felt was warmth. It wasn’t the stinging heat that she had felt when her angry tears rushed down her face after their death. It was something completely different. Something that she could not remember the last time she had felt. The warmth she felt completely encapsulated her, but it was light and calming. 

As her parent’s began their descent down to her, she felt her body grow lighter. There were no words exchanged between them, only smiles. Smiles that seemed to glow and shimmer. Her parents – they were angelic. Her parents, though they had always been attractive to Priscilla, seemed to be an even more perfect version of themselves. But she did not dwell on these things, all she could think about was their presence and the feeling they were giving her. And then they were there, only centimeters apart, and she could reach out and grasp them. But for whatever reason, Priscilla hesitated. Her smile glowing even more brightly, her eyes just focused in on the warm hues of her parents’. They just stood there in utter bliss before her parents made the first move. Their arms reached out, wrapping around her, but instead of feeling the steady pressure that she was so used to when they hugged her, she watched as they evaporated back into oblivion. Where they had touched her, a bright warmth hit, soon spiraling out into the rest of her body, blooming and growing until the light of the booth became far too bright for her to see anything but white again, and the sounds of her own laughter filled the room.