𝑰𝑵𝑲 • 𝑻𝒆𝒘𝒌𝒆𝒔𝒃𝒖𝒓𝒚 / 𝑳𝒐𝒖𝒊𝒔 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒈𝒆

Elsewhere

5 months ago

—————

It's you I see when I'm out of my mind

Images of you and I laying intertwined

It looks so real, so distinct and defined

A dream I envision as I drink myself blind

—————

Keys enter. They twist gently in place. A quiet, barely audible click. The door pushes open and out pours all the warmth it stores selfishly for itself.

The walk back was a mess. Florence walking slowly ahead, completely consumed in her thoughts, thinking about everything other than what had happened in a desperate attempt to console and distract herself. She thought that maybe if she pretended it hadn't happened, she would be okay. What's one lost day in a lifetime, what's the harm in erasing 24 hours. She was fully aware of the boy behind her. She could hear his unsteady steps as he treaded a few feet away.

One would think that something as intense as what had just unraveled about an hour ago would be sufficient to sober up anyone involved. But apparently not. Tewkesbury was out of it. Turns out that he had been at the pub all day, meaning that he would have had to be drinking from around lunch time.

Florence didn't like crying. Not because it made her feel weak or small, but because for her it left a permanent trail. She didn't like crying in places she knew she would have to return to. It was for this reason that she refused to cry anywhere important to her. No tears at home, no tears in the manor, and just no tears on the estate. Her tears seemed to taint her surroundings, darkening the walls and sucking out all the air.

But since she was outside, out in the open with stars above her, she felt she could cry. No guilt, no repercussions. She could just let it all out and not have to worry about it following her around.

And it was going so well, that is, until they arrived.

Standing in front of the run down old door with chipping wood and bouts of young moss, she stopped. Tewkesbury caught up to her quickly, standing beside her and waiting for the door to open, but it didn't. Looking down at her, it was as if she wasn't there. She was staring at the door but it was obvious that she was seeing something else. The image curating in her mind falling before her vision, taking her somewhere else only to be torn away from her imagination by his voice.

"Are we going to go in?" He was getting cold. His hands were covered in different shades of red, dried blood on his fingertips and palm, but bright red on his raw knuckles, scratched open from the punches he had thrown.

"Not yet." She was quiet but he could hear her loud and clear. Tewkesbury knew about her peculiarity, that she couldn't cry indoors, or anywhere confined. He knew why she wanted to stay outside. She wanted to cry herself out, dehydrate to the point of death, keep her happy spaces happy.

So it came as no surprise to him when she let it all go right then and there. The tears rushing out of her and falling down her concrete features. Another thing about Florence was her lack of physical emotion. She wasn't an animated cryer. The tears would take their course but she would remain still through it all.

This didn't stop him though from pulling her in, wrapping his arms around her and hiding her from the peering moon. Comforting his friend from the outside world and anything that could harm her.

It was a tight embrace, and Florence couldn't tell if she was suffocating from distress or his hold on her. But she knew it had happened, and it was now over. There was nothing she could do to change that. No way of going back and erasing the night, or stopping herself from going after him and putting herself in that position. But his hands were a reminder that it was over, that the man's blood was spread across his palm, and that Tewkesbury had been the one to draw it from his skin.