the 1 | chaennie

45. Death By A Thousand Cuts

I dress to kill my time
I take the long way home
I ask the traffic lights if it'll be alright
They say, "I don't know"
And what once was ours
Is no one's now
I see you everywhere, the only thing we share
Is this small town
You said it was a great love
One for the ages
But if the story's over, why am I still writing pages?

'Cause saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts
Flashbacks waking me up
I get drunk, but it's not enough
'Cause the morning comes and you're not my baby
I look through the windows of this love

Even though we boarded them up
Chandelier still flickering here
'Cause I can't pretend it's okay when it's not
It's death by a thousand cuts

-

"She had the tattoo removed?"

"Mhm," Rosie said, the sound lighthearted and flippant, a flimsy guise for how she really felt about it, and how much it had hurt her when she'd found out. "I released the album with the song Wonderland on it, and a couple of months later I saw a photo. She was wearing a skirt and a top that showed her midriff. It was all pink where she was in the midst of getting her rib tattoo removed. It used to say 'we're all mad here', as a reference to Alice In Wonderland. I guess my song was too on the nose for her."

"But it was so hard for me to let go. I don't know why, it just- it never really felt like it was done. I was still writing songs about her, and I just couldn't stop. I never got the closure I needed, and because of that, the story never quite felt like it was over."

With a deep sigh, Rosie rubbed at her forehead, at the grave furrow between her eyebrows, aware of the hum of equipment and the bated breaths of everyone in the room. It was unnerving, sitting under so much scrutiny, the heavy weight of the silence suffusing the room. It felt suffocating, and Rosie's skin prickled with a cold sweat as fear coiled in her stomach.

Plucking at the white cotton of her shirt as it clung to her chest, she cleared her throat and shifted, uncrossing her legs and crossing them again the opposite way. Flexing her fingers in a nervous tic, Rosie's face crumpled at a thought, nose wrinkling with distaste.

"Love is awful," she blurted out.

Nayeon let out a loud laugh, face lighting up with glee at Rosie's exclamation, and she gave her a goading look as she smiled, ice brown eyes calculating and cool as she looked at her.

"You think so? You're such a romantic though."

"Oh, I know," Rosie said with a strained laugh, flashing her a thin smile, "and that's why I'm sure of it. It's awful. Truly awful - and painful. It makes you doubt yourself, judge yourself. It can make you close yourself off from everyone else in your life. There were times when I was utterly selfish. Cruel and abhorrent to be around in my broken-heartedness. And it was all in the name of love. Who would ever think that something so sweet and beautiful and passionate as love could be so ... bad. It truly can bring out the worst in someone, and I was never more so at my worst than when I was away from Jennie."

"How did you manage? How did you deal with being that way? Obviously, that's a big shift from how your audience perceives you, and it's clear that no one picked up on this at the time."

Humming in agreement, Rosie's mouth thinned as a solemn pensiveness clouded her expression. Propping her chin up in her hand, she brooded for a moment, brown eyes clouded and dark as she picked apart the tangled web of blurred memories and old feelings.

"I was ... lost."

Her voice was faint, defeated and so soft that the room seemed to quieten a fraction more, everyone leaning in to hear her. Screwing her eyes shut, Rosie paused for a moment, shaking her head, before her eyelashes fluttered and her eyes snapped back open to lock onto Nayeon's. There was a bright sheen to them, a glossiness that belied the stoic look on Rosie's face.