enchanted [toni shalifoe, the wilds]

day three - part two

Ava grunted as she stumbled deeper into the forest than she'd ever been. She needed to take her mind off the whole Dot situation, but she knew that was only isolating herself from the group so that she didn't have to admit she was wrong and go through that bullshit. Because she knew it, she knew that she was wrong. She knew that she freaked out over nothing, and she really needed that bandage now.

There was just something she couldn't totally place about this whole thing. Maybe it wasn't just the people that she didn't trust, maybe it was this island. She shrugged the thought off the moment it entered her head. It was just the fact that she didn't really trust anything or anybody at this point in her life after what happened.

She stopped, the ground starting to spin due to the weight of her thoughts. Every single thought seemed to weigh an extra tonne; the plane crash, her arm, her fights with Toni, her outburst with Dot, her feelings towards Toni-

Her head snapped round the very second she heard a head-splitting hissing sound coming from a dozen metres away. The blood drained from her face, her mouth still slightly open from her panting, but now she barely dared to move.

Time seemed to stop once the snake was less a metre away from her. It curled itself up, and Ava prayed that it was retreating but it was only preparing itself to stretch out and unfold its' long tongue to hiss at her even more.

She had no clue to deal with anything like this, the only thing she could think of was to raise her hands up in some kind of defeat or surrender. Ava wasn't really good with survival situations, and as for defending herself? Lost fucking cause.

-

"Thank you, thank you so much!" Her girlfriend gushed on the stage of her gig. Since her song had been a hit, not to brag, she was becoming kind of a big deal in the grime scene in her city. Tonight was one of her first gigs after a long period of deprivation. It was a huge deal for her. Ava's day was spent waiting on her. Waiting for her to get out of band practice, waiting for her to buy the drugs for that night, waiting for her to drive the pair to the venue. And now, she was waiting for Ava's own moment.

"This song is kind of about a relationship..." She began, grinning a believable fake smile. Ava could barely contain her excitement, twiddling her thumbs nervously. "I kind of want to keep everything private, you know, maybe keep everyone out the loop slightly?" She went on, now shifting her eyes down to her guitar. "Anyways, I wrote it myself in like half an hour, it was such a rush. Enjoy."

Ava's eyes glossed over as her girlfriend strummed out the opening bars to their song. She blinked, still stupidly hoping she'd misheard everything and her girlfriend was about to correct herself. Hoping she was about to say how much she loved writing this song with her girlfriend whom she loved with every part of her being, and how it's based on their relationship and how it feels to be a compelling writing duo-

"I need air." Ava mumbled, but nobody could hear over the stolen melodies. The song felt dirty now, like it was this beautiful track in her head but now hearing it live it was a worthless three and a half minutes.

She wandered to the back door of the club, pushing the door open with minimal force. The cold, London air hit her, and she welcomed the new calming sensation. She leaned her head against the brick wall, suddenly not caring about all the bird shit she knew was on it. Rubbing her eyes, she got out her fake ID from the pocket of her jacket. Her girlfriend had been able to work miracles, the girl in the photo looked just like her. Sometimes she felt like her girlfriend would prefer it if she was this girl in the photo. The cool girl, who was actually old enough to be in club. She wouldn't care about a dumb song that she'd co-written, and she would have definitely taken the stupid pill last week without any childish hesitation. Maybe this girl would please her more than she did.