Absolution and Fragility

VII

She will lose herself.

Lexi woke in a room darker than her own. The bedspread wasn't white and didn't smell of her but instead of something much more floral. There was a slight crack in the curtain that allowed light to shine in on her body, but when she rolled over, the false warmth she had felt beside her had alluded to no one's presence. There was no sound either as she took a second to listen around her.

Silence.

She was alone.

Getting up, she made her way about her normal morning routine of getting dressed for the workout, going through the workout, and eating. She had slept through training. Her anger was taken out on the punching bag until she was exhausted, until her muscles made her body feel like gelatin, and her fists had bruised even through the wrapping she had done. There were now bruises on top of bruises.

Her food wasn't cooked by Jasper. Instead, she ate leftovers and brewed her own coffee. The time it took for all the reheating, the brewing, and her eating, put her on edge. Her knuckles body ached, and she wasn't prepared for any sort of fight whether it be physical or verbal. A fight was not something she was looking for in this moment.

She forced herself into simplicity.

Coffee drank without her milk.

Eggs without salt and pepper.

Fruit touching the grease of reheated bacon.

It was simple.

It was lonely.

She never thought she would be lonely. Alone, sure, but lonely? Never. Her dream had never alluded itself to loneliness. It was simple. It was full of life's contents.

After eating, she poured herself another simple black coffee and walked to her room on the route she knew no one would be. When she finally entered her room after last night's fiasco, she found nothing to tell the tale except the empty, unbroken glass Theo had been drinking out of on the floor. The sun had tainted it with a glow against the carpet and shattered rainbows anywhere it could touch. It was a gorgeous reminder of what hadn't gone right.

She sighed. Loudly. Fruitlessly.

Her heart was in her throat. She moved slowly to the shower for a long cry.

Her last cry.

It felt final as she scrubbed her face clean and cut the shower off. Lexi dripped until she was too cold and too number. From there, she roughly dried herself to bring to blood to the surface of her skin before she dressed herself in a matching set of blush colored lace undergarments. While her hair dried, she had to think, or rather, had to believe about who she was.

What she had done before had worked to some extent: telling herself she was wrath, she was ruination, etc. But, it wasn't enough. It hadn't been enough. It had been her telling herself who she was, but never had it been her believing it. There had to be something in her she would pull out as a last resort.

Ice cold fear ran down her spine.

Her mind stopped on occasions she hadn't revisited in years because of what they could say about her. Lexi knew instantly what Theo had been talking about last night to provoke her even if he hadn't been meaning to at first. A good fight would unravel what she had been fighting so hard to become.

Could she become that thing again?

Could she let that demon inside of her out?

Lexi moved away from the window quickly and walked to the bathroom. She had to know if she looked the same. If she let her true nature run, she would be the same externally. Something told her that this time she would not get to back to who she is now. If she tried, she would be stuck in a limbo.