pretty chapped lips : malum :

1.0

for the three wonderful readers who took the time to comment over the past few days and really, by doing so they made my day. @mukeusyndrome , @nickiminashton and @_alltimeno_ thank you all so much, this is for you x

It was four months after he stumbled into my life, darting across the sea of tarmac for it's waves of roaring machines to consume him, that I finally spoke to the boy that haunted my dreams.

Four months before I had lived a life I deemed as the norm. Sleep was rare and my fathers yells were common. My eyes were dull and I forgot what it meant to care. A sharp tongue or grades teetering too close to average or dared dip below, equalled a bruised jaw and stars lighting up my eyes. But, then he slipped into sight, in the path of a cars head lights and suddenly, things changed.

Two months after, I found out about the boy he'd wait for outside my school building was the same my best friend loved. It was then, after two months of wide eyes in the night and dreaming of tanned skin and dark eyes as I fell asleep at my desk, that I finally discovered he was not a dream.

Then, three months after he fell into my life as he bathed in a speeding cars headlights was whenever I discovered his name. I expected something to come from knowing it. That perhaps, something would change once I could pair a name to the face that haunted my dreams night after night and even day after day. Though nothing changed bar handing in less and less assignments as I spent my days trying to find out who he was, forgetting fear of my fathers striking hand and my mothers disappointed eyes for becoming what I was never meant to be: ordinary.  

But it was four months. four months of spending every night searching for his face in the darkness. Four months of wondering who he really was. Four months of dreaming of his voice speaking directly to me. It took four months of waiting, watching, wanting, until we spoke for the very first time.

Whenever I saw him, it was unlike other times. I did not see him from the safety of my own home. I did not watch him through the thick glass of my classroom window nor across the wide main road. Actually, I didn't even see him at all for the most part.

My feet had hit the pavement quick and heavy, pushing my body forward, away from where I hid from. Faggotfreakfatass. Words circles my mind like water would circle the drain. Knees grazed, tears drying and ghosts of bruises decorating my skin. Breathing laboredandpained, eyes burning, chest heaving; all I wanted was to get out, to be able to run until my feet could no longer carry me and fall to the ground in a place where no one would ever know who I was. Somewhere were I was not known as the pathetic human being I seem to have become.

But that didn't happen.

Because my feet skidded on the tarmac and my fingers curled in dark brown hair, eyes closed tight so all there was were tiny pricks of light dancing in the darkness if my eyes. My back hit the wall and my breathing somewhat slowed. My hands fell from my hair as cigarette smoke hit me from the side that I turned to face, smoke curling along to kiss my skin and fill my own lungs with the intoxicating sent, lips ready to form the words of will you just fuck off before they stopped at the eyes that greeted mine.

They were lighter than I thought, though dead and dull like I always pictured. Deep brown suited him my mind whispered, they make him seem more alive though god knows he's probably dead on the inside. His lips were full like I first perceived, but they were chapped and torn in the most intriguing away. His cheeks were hollowing and his skin looked sickly. His hair was greasy and fell in his eyes from where it was pushed to the side. But even that, paired with the smoke that billowed from his lips to hit me straight in the fact: he was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

There was silence. Pure, simple silence loaded with a thousand questions I couldn't think to move my lips to speak. He didn't move, nor did I. But we stood, staring each other in the eyes as if awaiting the others move like chess players, sitting in silence as they calculate each and every move before finally reaching check mate.

"What's wrong?"

-

A/N first things first, thank you all so much for the amazing and sweet comments that I've been getting lately. I've truly been in a pretty bad place the past week and honestly, all of your sweet words made me happier than you could even imagine. So thank you, thank you so much for what you have said.

second off, expect another vitrifaction from me soon, it won't be an update but it's a hint.

and third of all, as usual, vote, comment and tell me what you think of this chapter.

thank you so much for being so kind, my beautiful, beautiful readers

- rachel x