𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 | 𝐉𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐊𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐢𝐧

𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐗 : 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

Hours blended like a watercolored cat on the thinnest of papers. People might have stepped through your bedroom door, but how many of their visits were dreams? It only felt half-real when Hitch spoke to you or when Mrs. Yeager smoothed the healed scar from your temple. Zeke even came to see you, which was odd in itself since another man's company had become so rare in your isolation. He offered you his cigarette, which you're sure he extended in jest, but your half-body plucked it from his fingers. Even as the sickening smoke filled your bedroom and lungs, the haze from your mind clouded the daylight in disorientation and buzzed over your skin in little lies.

Your wretched existence only felt real whenever you shut your eyes.

You slept so much and so often that seconds, minutes, and days passed in heartbeats. Dreaming no longer stirred fear in your chest—only comfort. Dreams welcomed you with open arms when you slept after picking at crumbs, crying under covers, or just sitting in the outrageously balmy late-August weather. You had a control there that wakefulness lacked, and you walked through the seasons of your life with an easy smile. Time flowed as you ordered and not with the perpetual ticks forward of her usual, heartless beat.

In Autumn, you buried Sasha and Connie under leaf piles and baked mincemeat pies with Mrs. Yeager. With each passing moment, you felt the winds shift colder and watched the verdant grass turn yellow. There were bushels of apples, mountains of turkey, and plenty of preparations made for the coming season.

In Winter, you danced on Father's feet as a warm blaze crackled in the fireplace and read books aloud to Eren and Mr. Ackerman to strengthen your tongue. Snow glimmered on lashes and soaked hair, but thick coats made by Father's gentle hand shielded most of the ice. There were countless cups of hot tea, snowmen and snow angels dotting white blankets, and even more preparations made for once the frost melted.

In Spring, you played Busted Balls with Zeke and Eren, tried on summer dresses with Hitch, and fanned through growing gardens with Sunny and Martin. The warming wind blew your hair in your eyes, and sweat finally reawoke from a layer of frozen skin. There were tulips in every flower bed, parasols covering every head whenever it threatened to rain, and final preparations made for the heat to come.

Only your best memories could paint your mind in the pink shades of nostalgia. But when it was time to walk through summer—to taste ripe berries and play in the lake—you could only see memories from this terrible, wicked summer.

You saw thousands of honey and caramel hues and tasted every single one's homey sweetness from plump lips under the watchful eye of moonbeams. You felt soft hair and rough hands caress broken fingers and heard the most lovely laughter echoing through crumbling walls. You smelt salt off the ocean, moonshine on the breath, and rain in the forest. You dreamt of all the other seasons during the day, but only at night could you escape into summer and all the senses mucked up from beneath the dirty depths of despair.

And each time you awoke, covered in night's dark quilt, you fled your bedroom in search of water to cleanse your sullied sensations. You descended into an empty kitchen, stared out its distorted window, and always found the furthest cabin. You could control what you saw in dreams, but whenever you tried to will a candle flickering in its window, no flame sparkled in the distant glass. You lacked the power to birth or reflect light; you could only cast shadows.

One day, Jean will thank me, you tried to convince yourself while you watched black panes. In a year or two, when the only man that could steal every one of your five senses found someone better suited to his flawed perfection, he would be thankful for your rejection. He would be glad you chose to die rather than be with him because you would have given him the beautiful life that your bloody hands could never sew together. He would find a kind, soft wife with ordinary dreams. She would give him all the children you were too terrified to create given your own history with motherhood, and his new partner would accept his love and stupid names with scarless skin that you would never have again.