𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐚¹- hp.

𝐱𝐱𝐱𝐯𝐢𝐢. death keeps cheating on my life but on my soul it's feeding.

꧁—— ❦ ——꧂

Grief is never linear. There are moments where you think the heaviness of it all will swallow you as easily as a pill. When the heart hangs heavy in a slow, pained beat and our bones seem to drag against concrete. The moments of questioning how you're supposed to go on without someone, unable to share even the smallest of news, or celebrate the smaller things in life. To imagine that you have to live every mundane day for the rest of your life, seemingly stacked in a mental calendar at the thought before it becomes a long lonely road you're to walk alone feels cruel. And then there's the guilt. Grief and guilt go hand in hand. We grieve those we've lost, become angry with them for dying, and then feel a sense of guilt for the things we think in fits of anger. The worst feeling, perhaps, is the guilt for enjoying something in our lives without them. Days become weeks, weeks become months, months become years, and, suddenly, years seem to become minutes.

And then there are those moments where the grief seems to disappear. Almost like it doesn't hurt as much anymore, and the void in the heart seems to be growing smaller. The moments we've become accustomed to their absence. To grow accustomed to the unoccupied and empty seat at graduation, the chipped mug that sits in the corner of the cabinet and goes unused. The absence of a laugh, of their voice, of them, both in our pictures and in our lives. In these times, the grief doesn't feel so overwhelming. Knowing that they'd want us to continue to enjoy our life and to move forward without them. It hurts, yes, but it doesn't hurt as much as it did. She's never understood the concept of grief. Why there's so much anger towards Christiaan for dying, and so much desperation in wishing to hear his laugh one last time. Or, why she grieves the four men that have died at the end of her hands. Perhaps, it is merely the guilt at knowing she was the last person they had seen. No family, no friends, just her. She never truly feels more like a monster than she does the next day.

There's a stream of light that shines through the sliver in her curtains early that morning. She wishes she could say it woke her up, but it hasn't. How does one fall asleep after committing a murder? It makes her feel like a felon, and then it makes her feel like Matthijs, and that stabs her grief like an open wound. She wishes that Christiaan were still asleep in the room across from her. If he were, she'd have no qualms about crawling into his bed and waking him up so early just for some sense of comfort she doesn't seem to deserve. He'd always known just exactly what to say to make her grief feel smaller. His absence feels like a reminder; a reminder that she seems to do more harm than good, a reminder that those around her are in a sorts of inevitable danger, and, lastly, a reminder that her life is not worth nearly as much as she wishes to believe it is.

"Lavinia!"

Lavinia angrily pounds her head against her pillow, and winces when everything seems to suddenly spin. She doesn't think she can deal with her mother today ( or any day, really, for that matter ). Not with the scrutiny that stamps itself to her bones, the prolonged silence that she knows is there in order to force her to confess her sins, or, the fact that she knows hidden somewhere in her gut that her mother is right. She is, by all means, the devil reincarnated. She ponders the idea of ignoring her. To just lay her head back down on the pillow, to throw the covers over her head, and wish to just disappear. Anything, really, to finally become one with her solitude. She'd deal with the consequences of ignoring her if it meant diminishing her grief, but, then, she knows her mother's patience has thinned in the weeks since her fight with Sophia. She fears that for once she has danced to close to the edge. She thinks ( hopes ) that her mother may kill her.