Lola looks like heaven underneath these flashing lights. That pretty girl, cherry mouthed and closed eyes, she’s brilliant and it’s easy to see why the world STANDS TRANSFIXED. Isn’t she lovely? They’ll sigh and groan. Won’t she look my way? But it’s easy to forget the person for the glory, the way that there’s a person that sits all holed up beneath the paint, that raw girldom that hunches and sways, and learns what those lights, a place like this, those drinks can do to you. And Avery isn’t helping with a wider grin, a fist held out. “Have a bump on me~” because why not? Why fucking not?

                           After all, the world was THEIRS.

And her hand finds her hand and they’re weaving through the crowd. Just another place that doesn’t need them, everyone inside of here is art. Empty, beautiful, glorious, poised, and perhaps it’s not the WORST THING TO BE, but in truth, there’s nothing satisfying for it either. That itch that they never seem to scratch, the terrifying truth of the boredom of doll-eyed girls in places like this. Teeth poised to eat your heart whole. “You said something happened in the bathroom?” her voice is a yell ; it barely covers above the din. How you could scream, and shout, and still have private conversations in places like this, pupils dilated, as they casually glance around the room, keeping Lola closer, safer. “Are you okay?”

Arms wrap around her knees, HEAD UP IN THE CLOUDS, better than being fucking down here on earth. Thank you Vicodin, thanks Ms Murry for being a depressed, pain addicted little shit, she, steals them out of her teacher’s purse when she isn’t looking, pops them down like candy. Everything slows. Her brain, the party, the music. This high will carry her for a few hours until she doesn’t feel fucking shit, it’s beautiful, it’s bliss, this is real, isn’t it? Or no - maybe there’s something else, the sound of a voice, familiar, her dreary gaze dredged up to find Peter, looking dazed and confused, Rue left trying to find her god damned mental. “Like, what the hell does anybody do on a Thursday anyways? Tuesday’s for partying. Thursday’s for forgetting your name.”

She talks, just to talk - that wan smile that flickers with life on her face, the casual shrug of her thin shoulders beneath the collapsing weight of an oversized sweater, that’s life! She supposes, HEAD TILTING BACK with the drink that she’s been nursing, how good it goes down with everything else. Down, down, down... until she isn’t sure what else to do, to think, even if she’s all too loose with her tongue. “What are you doing here though? I never thought parties were like, your thing. Are are you trying to see someone?” it’s not the kind of gossip that lights up anything in particular from her ; she’s just curious. He’s always seemed like that good guy type, like Ethan, in genuine force, rather than the manipulative. But who knew?

                     Looks could be deceiving, they say. 

THAT’S HOLLYWOOD for you! Faye, who walks down the street, handed a card and told she could really make it if she wanted, meets a strange, doughy face with a laugh, a rolling of eyes. Men will say anything, won’t they, when they’re looking for an easy mark, she hates this place, this city, it’s rolling hills and it’s sun-baked streets. It’s nothing like home and the taste of the sea, out here it’s all clogged up with the congestion and the traffic. People who only talk about their fucking juice cleanses and their yapping little nightmares, Faye smokes, and feels annoyed, and looks for the only thing that’s ever felt like a comfort on afternoons like this. A place where everything sinks, timeless and graceless and washed over with a sense of seediness.

                                      That’s to say, she hits up the closest BLACKJACK tables.

Round and round and round it goes, someone’s playing the roulette tables, where everything CLATTERS WITH LIFE. People groaning, moaning, playing their luck, everyone’s on edge in this paradise with no windows, no clocks. You’re here to win big, or lose your shirt, and there’s no in between for the people who come here at these hours, Faye strolling amongst the familiar green felt, breathing in the smoke that lingers deep within her lungs. This is the closest thing that’s ever felt like home, or something like it, as she claims a seat at a table that seems more crowded than she expects, sunglasses pushed back and up and through her hair, as she throws down the starting chips to buy her way in. A glance to the left, he doesn’t seem that hard to beat, does he? Rich, pretty and stupid, she’s always loved her men like that, a sharp-edged grin, as she orders a drink, and waits for the games to begin.

Fingers pace the edge of some walkway, roadside, walk, walk, SPIN IF YOU WANT TO. Daylight, daytime, none of it sits right with Alice, sitting someplace between terrified and terrifying, her sanity feels stretched and pulled to the point of weakness, how sunshine spells out something heavy, visions that don’t quite make sense, take another pill and pray for salvation, Alice skipping over cracks, praying not to mis-step, and crack that which has a tenuous hold to begin with.

She loves, pretty things, and darling people, isn’t that why she comes to see Emerald? Bright like a diamond! But hard and sure in her existence, SOFT LIKE RAIN, in so many other ways. Come for a walk? She’ll text her sweet, all sugar and honey and a plying tone. She never tells her no, sweet girl that she is, which is why she’s waiting as Alice jumps over that next step, over those 1-2-3 hop-scotched markings with long-limbed grace, an arm looping through hers, to pull her along after her. “You look like you’ve got this whole story to tell me~” Alice, all dreamy, or is that the fucking weed? “And I’m like, dying to know. Where’d you go last night?”

                    They tell her to HAVE PATIENCE, don’t they?

That things take time. That she needs time. That it’s going to be what strips away the troubles that ail her, the depths of something that she can’t give a name to. Tell me, she’d respond, with acid on her tongue, that fizzles to life as she stirs, predatory. How long until you forget your child? The one you love? The life you once had? Nobody ever has an answer, of course.

                                            Life isn’t quite SO NEAT like that.

Have patience, she repeats to herself, when on a rooftop, when staring down the barrel of a sniper’s rifle. Take care, she thinks, when adjusting for the wind and the trouble, when she takes aim and presses at the trigger to let LEAD FLY, it’s all just another sentence to be had that she holds out. Patience takes so many forms. Even revenge, if you let it.

Meticulous care, packages up her things, stuffs away the temporary measures she makes for death, it’s down these steps and into the space below. How she’ll weave and find a seat to watch the show as it unfolds, it’s always that surprise that seems to radiate outwards for others, when the cop cars pull up, and the sirens WAIL. Everyone gossiping, what happened, do you think someone’s hurt? Worse than that, for a good price, she reckons, sipping at a tea as she looks bored, out of practice, flipping through a book until the production begins. Turning then to the her neighbour, at the table to her left. “... it is always this noisy here?”