#egojock

ㅤㅤtight fitting skirt was hiked up enough to expose the still red cheeks of her plump ass, matching scars scattering the back of her thighs as she bent over the bannister when she spotted a familiar, and handsome, face. " hey, " smoke spilt from matte black lips as she spoke, whistling to get his attention regardless of the time. " cigarette boy. " or at least that's how she remembered him. a conversation and a smoke. she was terrible at names. " you feel like sharing tonight? i'm down to my last smoke. " a veiled way of asking for company. sometimes it was just nice to be with someone that wasn't paying.

@egojock “Try to keep quiet…we wouldn’t want to get caught.”

@egojock are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me?

It was games like this and truth or dare that eventually led to trouble. This was all new with Nate, but she had liked him for so long. The countless glances during her dance practices, the walks home even if he drove, the constant flirting via text, the instagram comments, they all led to small conversations like these that felt more important than they both let on.

Nothing in The Falaise House needs to be fixed. Not it's meticulous order, rules of decorum, the regimented flare that only seem rigid to those that don't belong. Hara finds the flaws. It's not in chipped paint ... because there is none. It's the chalkboard on the kitchen wall near the main entrance where she sees her name in the middle of the 5:30 am breakfast shift. Or the memories that linger, almost conveniently, in rooms with the cloth still draped over furniture. Nate is lucky to be visiting when no one else is here ... the Oras are currently scattered around the globe, either in homes of their own or the many properties passed down generation to generation.

❛ ⸺This is one of many vacation homes my family owns. But its not, you know, mine. I like living in hotels. Or staying somewhere I know is available ... like this. Technically, I do have a little secret place in Greece. ❜

Although, the place she bought isn't as big as the villas and townhouses and castles in the sky, it does share something else in common. Almost any of the Ora houses are built on a cliff, or a hill, even if it doesn't seem to be as overt as the others, they seem to lean that way. Her Greek home is a one bedroom home built into a cliff, abutting the water. She'll always be a little bit of her blood.

Half-leaned against the kitchen island, cheek in palm, she glances over a Thai menu ⸺ 1. The Falaise House's staff is not here yet for the season. 2. he can pick from the folder of take-out menus if he doesn't like Thai but Hara likes and consumes from a small, small list.

She doesn't notice her hair veiling one eye but she does feel him gather it back behind her ear. She doesn't notice how much she leans into it. But she does notice the roughness of his fingertips, the little bit of wood glue that's dried over at least one of his fingerprints. There's a compelling case that poets and novelists alike try to answer ... do you exist if you aren't touched? The body of her harp functions fine despite some damage but it'll be easier for her to play with the little fixes ... the foot, the hexafoils cosmetic detail, things that happened in transit. She catches his hand and drags her thumb over the gluey-spot. Putting dinner to the side, she pulls him towards the sink.

SUBJECT: prompts for the heavy hearted meme NOTIFY: @egojock REGARDING: nate jacobs

the bury her fucking alive. leaving rue to have to confront just how little she really meant to the world. why alamo maybe picked her because... who's looking for the girl who's family doesn't know where the fuck she is anymore? who's looking for that one who's already had issues with another drug dealer, oh, an addict, a crackhead, you know what happens to GIRLS LIKE THAT. the ones that dared to be poor, who didn't have the femininity and the whiteness behind them to hold to the light and be declared as not only pitiable, but someone worth looking for.

it takes her FOREVER to get out.

no phone, no way out, she walks. it reminds her in a way of her time with laurie, that one time in the desert. she walked and walked and almost fainted from the lack of water, she feels the sort of HORROR you're meant to feel when reading of biblical figures suffering their trials and tribulations. but rue was anything but holy, and right now, the only thing on her mind was trying to get the fuck away from this shit. rue doesn't know how long she walked, but she does see the time in the car of the girl who picks her up. the first out of like, 5 cars that just passed her by. it's 4:14, and she asked to be dropped off at like, any gas station, she's thankful, she's sorry, she knows she smudged dirt all over that poor girl's car.

and when she's there she like, convinces someone to let her call someone else. she thinks, hard, honestly, about who she bothers to bail her out, who'd come all the way out to... fuck. she squints, reading the gas station sign and pegged herself like, maybe 30 minutes, 2 hours LA traffic far from the city. shit. who's close? who can make it without giving her SHIT? it's weird when she calls him, first. usually, she's like a texter, and the fact that she remembers his number? probably because that shit's been the same since 5th grade for him. but she dials, her lips pressed thin as she asked with a shaking voice if he could come by to get her. he says yes, in a move that still always surprises her, and hesitantly, she says she'll see him soon, before she hangs up.

he whistles when he sees, her, rue still trying to dig out the dirt from the ridges of her clothes, the creases of her shoes. the look she gave him was quietly pained, climbing into that cyber truck with an internal cringe, but right now, whatever, she could feel all moralistic about this shit LATER, unwilling to be both a beggar, and a chooser. "... i really fucked up." it's like that roll down of all the previous conversations. do you believe in forgiveness? who would you be if things could be different? "i-i've been working at this fucking... club. the one that cassie's at." the nervous glances, the way her stomach clenches. "t... the cops caught me. from that shit with that dealer, and like... they said i had to do it, this... this recording." fuck. fuck. fuck. "o-only laurie fucking robbed them, shot someone and like, alamo fucking killed someone and now..." now they're gonna kill me. she knows none of it makes sense, her head in her hands, her frustration, bubbling.

it's all her fault, she did this shit, she BURIED A BODY, oh my god, what the hell has she done. "and i'm fucking... i'm nobody. they can do it, they're gonna fucking kill me, oh god-" she could be sick. the sickly sour feeling of it, crawling up her throat.

“ i just need you to know that you’ve never been ‘nobody’ to me. you’ve never been nothing. ”

SUBJECT: locations + situations meme NOTIFY: @egojock CONCERNING: nate jacobs

honestly? it's kind of been a SHIT TIME for everybody lately. and rue could tell that nate was no exception. it's odd, being over at lexi's and seeing the way that the cameras would pop off from the window at night from cassie's apartment. that in a way, she was doing all the same things from high school again to catch the attention of some boy giving her attention. only now? the attention was from everybody who added themselves as a subscriber to her account. every ping of a new sub for her was a form of a dopamine hit to the brain... and fuck, if rue didn't get that part of the whole thing.

everyone's falling in with their own addictions to something. with nate, she wondered what that might be. despite the both of them knowing each other for years, nate was always swimming within his lane, the one in which he could control for himself. but the world now was not the world it once was ; and she hears from lexi in hushed tones as she makes rue a tea at night that like, nate's in trouble. in fact, his whole little PROJECT that they'd broken ground on? actually got rejected in front of the board of approvals when it came to the land agreements and something something or another. legal talk that made, like, no sense to her, but definitely was the nail in what hammered home why cassie wasn't returning back to their mcmansion.

and when she goes over, it's like, maybe unexpected. but after nate made that offer about helping to pay off her debt, she figured that she at least owed him THIS MUCH. it's not, like, pity or anything. if she really thought about it, she and nate had known each other at this point for like, 18 years. shit like that... it could feel crazy, couldn't it?

HIGH: for our muses sit on top of a roof together, sharing a bottle of booze or a joint.

she convinces him first to sit on the roof. it starts on the balcony, but like, this place is built kinda weird and she could see from there that you could get out from one of the windows and she'd announced, solemnly, that they were gonna go out from there. a pause, added, to tell him only if he didn't JUMP. but the bottle of liquor helps. she has weed, too, and the fact that he took a hit didn't surprise her, so much as she found it painfully ironic that her 17 year old self would have never been able to envision something like this together. how could she? they were always, it seemed, fighting over the same girl, the same moment. everything reflected back at them, in their worst and best, within each other.

rue doesn't talk about the debt. or his parents, or the fucking awkward wedding that had all these moments where things just felt like, out of control for so many people in the room. how there'd been some crazy UNDERCURRENT that came with some woman whisper hissing at cassie about an investment, or like, her little work emergency. instead, she talked about their coming up.

There's no shortage of emergencies tonight, they've waited long and are lucky they can sit hip to hip in a singular bed in a room instead of the exposure some other patients obtain in the hallways. Matching gashes like friendship bracelets or whatever name makes whatever they are now. A physician, who finally comes in makes a stabbing guess ... couple? Hara doesn't have the to reply. She can feel her heartbeat in the lengthy wound on her arm. She can't tell her blood from what's his ... they've no doubt mixed at this point. The ways bodies come undone is rarely pretty, elegant, or precise. They'll gush where they must.

She really does try to stay present but only waves of dialogue reach her. "We'll do your girlfriend first..." Her gaze stays pin-focused on the needle and how the more she stares at it the bigger it gets. "You're going to feel a pinch." They lied. It feels like burning or an axe coming down into the tender meat of her. "Stay still." After the first injection, her body's twisting to go. They don't have a second pair of hands to spare, Nate's will have to do.

She doesn't know what comes first. His hand on her nape, steadying her, or her hand on him. Either way, his forearm gets sandwiched between her clinging and her cheek. They're close enough to recycle each other's breath. It’s the only thing keeping her in place. The numbing-attempt of lidocaine feels worse than the pain it took to put her here. Of course it would be, it's addressing already un-made edges. Each respire allows them to fall in closer. Nose-to-nose. Lash-to-lash. She doesn't think she'll make it through this. Her pained sounds progress the same way a song does ... like the chorus heading for the bridge. And it goes off her trembling mouth and into his wrist.

Another bridge to cross is between pain and pleasure. When their mouths meet, it's an analgesic pull. He feels magnanimous first. Her, him, another type of bleed. Just two hurt bodies attempting to escape the pain ... or transform it into something they can metabolism. Her mind can start to swap what takes priority to feel.