FUNERAL ━━ c. diggory

iii. eighteen days

⠀⠀Bite your tongue.

⠀⠀I clamped my jaw hard, wincing at the sharp pain in the tender flesh of my mouth, and as I relax, I tenderly probe my ragged tongue. She slapped me across the face.

⠀⠀"You stupid girl! I did not mean it literally-"

⠀⠀I bit my tongue regardless, and the damage had been done, further hurt by the stinging of the welt on my cheek from her harsh hand. I've always had a love, hate, relationship with pain. It reminds me that I'm alive, which is a problem within itself.

⠀⠀Shut my eyes and it all fades to black, but the throbbing in my cheek remains a thread tying me to a world where I'm still a living, breathing, girl.

⠀⠀There's a silver cross hanging around my neck. Its cradled by the sharp edges of my collarbones, resting in a small indent of skin, where it gleams in the sun, forever polished. Pretty girls bite their tongues and wear their cross. Pretty girls never forget to pray, or wake up as the sun sets while coming down from a forbidden substance they dared to consume.

⠀⠀Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I tightened the chain from which the cross dangles, my very own noose I wear every day. Pretty girl dead, strangled by her own holiness.

⠀⠀The only issue is that I am neither pretty, nor holy, but rather a sinner walking amongst my fellow mortals, dressed in the tattered silks of ruination and grief, face smudged with tear-stained eyeliner, and lips haunted by the fleeting ghosts of the past.

⠀⠀My grandmother is relentless as she forces me to my knees, limbs crumpling as they slap against the laminate floors, the living room alight with a dancing firestorm as rays of light stream through cherry red curtains to bathe the room in a vermilion hue. The floral wallpaper is peeling, the television is droning, and my eyes are swimming with salty tears that escape and trace rivers down my cheeks.

⠀⠀ I laugh, my head thrown back, chestnut locks dancing. There's a knock on the door, jarring and abrupt, and my grandmother scowls, hard lines set in her creased cheeks.

⠀⠀There's a very pretty muggle girl who lives next door, Margot, named after the princess, even if she's not even close to pretty and delicate. Her hands are always stained with the dye that colors her hair, and she has eyes rimmed with dark liner that bleeds when she laughs so hard that tears emerge.

⠀⠀The knocks don't cease, so my grandmother sends me a look. "I'll get it," I cough, wiping away the moist sprinkling of tears on my cheeks, glaring at my grandmother as I open the door. "Hey Margot."

⠀⠀Margot's holding a basket of cookies, but her face is awash with concern. "Everything okay? I heard screaming."

⠀⠀"Radio," I lie, gritting my teeth. "Do you want to come in?"

⠀⠀Margot shakes her head, passing the basket over. "Mum sent these, I'm just her errand girl."

⠀⠀"Please," I chuckle. "I insist. I'll put on the tea."

⠀⠀Margot nods, pursing her carmine stained lips, before smiling. She's had a few cavities, and their fillings twinkle silver in pearly rows.

⠀⠀My grandmother has disappeared into her bedroom, and I can hear the soft mumblings of a prayer, the paper-thin walls lacking any insulation to prevent sound from escaping. The air is almost sticky with humidity, a slight breeze from a creaking ceiling fan ruffling the shut curtains as I put on the kettle and drop tea bags into chipped porcelain mugs.

⠀⠀Margot has always taken her tea the same way, more milk and sugar than tea. Perhaps it was why her teeth rot so easily. I prefer it black with exactly half a teaspoon of brown sugar. I like the bitterness, and the way the scalding liquid burns my tongue.

⠀⠀"I got a job," Margot grins once more, rotten and pearly teeth glinting. "I'm working at a bar, you should come by."

⠀⠀Were addicts supposed to waltz into bars and knock back shots? Perhaps not, but I smile back and nod. "We can't all stay cooped up."

⠀⠀Margot has that sympathetic look in her eyes. The kind of look where your puppy has simultaneously been run over by a car, and exploded in a bomb. It's pitying, and beyond humiliating, or would be for a normal person, but I could not care less. "You should get out more Eden, see the city."

⠀⠀"I can see it from my window just fine."

⠀⠀Margot grits her teeth and manages a smile. She knows I'm lying. All I can see from my window is the brick facade of another building, and I know that because she sleeps in the same room at her own flat. "It was nice talking to you," she says politely.

⠀⠀She doesn't have to lie. I can see it on her face as she leaves, the stare of pity a fixture on her face. I'm always the one being pitied.

author note // this chapter is definitely
inspired by sylvia plath <3333