cheeriocheetah
It hurts, and not like that. The pressure of the metal on my ribs, the weight bending my spine into a sharp S, the need to be the best. The need, but not the strength. Five drums harnessed to my hips, pulling at my shoulders. I just want that strength.
He stepped off the muddied ledge and onto the crusty ground. His tattered boots sunk into the damp earth as he stared solemnly across the dawn-gray field at the retreating figure. The wet grass closed behind her, swallowing everything in a moment.
He didn't like to allow his t's and x's to completely cross, and this frequently slowed him down. He wanted space between the lines, a moment of lightness, a pregnant breath, a strange freedom that never really mattered in the end.
His fingers rested lightly on the plastic strings. They were sticky with caramel apples and spilled juice. Small, curling animals, those fingers.
Poured heavily, it made a somehow appetizing sheen across the garage floor. The fumes, that was it. The oily, sliding colors, the slowly expanding edges... He flicked at the lighter and crouched.
Red-faced, she whirled to face me, her pale hands fluttering dramatically in front of her chest like frantic pigeons. "Oh! Oh! How could you even know about the sort of suffering I live through?!" she howled, her hand flashing for my shirt and gripping, her talon-like nails stretching the fabric. With a final wail, she collapsed and rolled at my feet, pounding in heated bursts at my sharp, dark, uncaring heels.
The slash was long and deep and terribly crimson, and it occurred to him that his hands would do little to keep his fragile, fleeting life inside. He cupped at the wound desperately, fumbling with the torn clothes and the stinging flesh and the awful flood of regret and blood.
It lay in several pieces in the middle of the lane. Yellow splinters fanned across dull bricks. The mud was slowly pulling the shattered remnants down, and the heartbroken girl couldn't gather them in time for the rain anyway.
The pinball machine rang out in tinny enthusiasm. Blue lights, green lights, flashing yellow and orange bulbs. "I beat it!" he cried out, his face awash in neon colors and his eager little hands still clasping the levers. When he turned, she'd already moved on.
They left me standing on the curb, gripping the slightly tattered handle of the flamboyantly magenta duffle my parents had given me. I thought I could hear the high giggling of impish girls in the car speeding away from my house, but it may have only been in my head, a product of the alone.