#driedtearss

richard siken meme ( accepting ) + @driedtearss // bowen

She isn’t used to this. Unsteady steps, all that talking, the way that being with Bowen is an exercise in learning how to wring her feelings clean, to find herself UN-JUDGED whenever something spills, manic, depressive, from her lips. All that rage, and all that worry, everything that twists pretty like vines about her ribcage, her heart a forgotten thing that she has allowed to fall into disrepair before him. It’s not even about Jules, is it? When they talk, he blows dust off the memories she’s kept carefully folded within her deck, the things that she forgets ( oh no, that couldn’t be my card ). It all starts before her dad even dies, when it’s parts of her that are, with indignities piled high, with her, uncertain, about anything that she did, who she was, who she was becoming there at the poised edge of girlhood, in all its glory, in all its violence.

He talks to her too. All this shit, about his family and his dad and everything about the weight of all their expectation. At first she thinks, isn’t it nice? They still fucking believe in you and that you’re capable, but then she thinks, how hard would it be, if she was both using and her mom thought that she could be this person that felt impossibly BEYOND HER, that shit... would suck. She gets it then, holding his fingers loose, her pinky linked about his own, as they lean against park benches, beneath the flickering awareness of streetlights that dot the landscape.

               “ let’s not talk about it, let’s just not talk. ”

height comparison !!

Bowan is like, the only guy Rue knows who’s isn’t like a complete asshole the first time they meet. It’s one of those clock-strikes-midnight kind of deals, and it’s a run in at the convenience store, he stares, she stares, they squint and she recognizes him as the new guy who’s here from Chicago, how he talks about THE WEATHER THERE and how weird it is to be someplace warm in the winter. Rue only laughs about it, all the while smoking a joint that she picks up inside from Fez, and she tells him it’s all she’s ever known, and that she’s never seen the snow. They part with the kind of smile that says they might pick this up again sometime, as temporary company, or they might not depending on how the stars align. She knows better than to put weight into anything, in this summer of discontent of hers.

The school year kicks off, and Rue’s met Jules. She falls in love, she finds herself obsessive. Nobody prepares her for this twisted something that she still doesn’t know how to reason with, dark eyes watching forlorn after the back of one blonde haired everything. Sometimes sulking in those midnight catch ups, to Bowen whenever he could, that she just DOESN’T UNDERSTAND what she’s supposed to do. Figures, maybe she’s just got to feel it out. But Rue’s always been afraid of living, when all she wants to do is die. But now that she’s clean, things change, don’t they? No more midnight runs, no more girlfriend, either, so meeting him by daylight hours only startles her, pausing, as a more relaxed grin takes form. “Whoa. Look at you. Not used to seeing you with shades on, man. How you been?”

( sms ) : i could use some company right now.

( sms ) wanna pick me up? i can meet you by the road. i already know my mom is passed out.