xi. anatomy

She makes her see white and red, something like a flag, something like crushing lungs and suffocating thoughts that drown. Fingers and teeth make marks down her shoulder, caresses and kisses go way deeper than that. Hair spills over shoulders. Dark eyes pant heavy.

It’s not supposed to hurt. Those gently flashing hands aren’t meant to scar and burn. Clothes fall, tumble down, tear from bodies to make way for trailing touches. And Jessica lunges for her on bed, impatient but with this certainty in her. Tiffany is being pushed down, Jessica’s hands slipping underneath her curling shoulder blades. The descent happens there.

Descent into insanity, lust, a lack of control that pains both of them. Some emotions slip out, and Jessica will never be rich enough to afford to be rough and scalding with Tiffany. Tiffany is never wise enough to know what’s good for her.

“Stop,” Tiffany gasps when Jessica’s hands still on her shoulders, “stop being so gentle.”

Jessica’s eyes worry, they question. “Am I…am I hurting you?”

Tiffany can never bring herself to be honest when she’s bursting. Tongue thick, throat constricted. Tiffany gasps and feels like she should sob, because anger can only be ignored for some time before it makes its grand entrance.

“Yes,” her fingernails dig deeper. “Yes, you’re hurting me. Jess, you’re hurting me.”

“I—I—sorry.”

But Jessica doesn’t pull away, letting herself lie limp, in a way only dead bodies should. The angular curve of her shoulder is blue and sick with moonlight seeping through the in-betweens of the tapestry. Jessica breathes like she’s dying.

After a long moment of silence and obnoxiously loud thoughts, Tiffany fades her panting and asks, “How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Jessica’s jaw moves against Tiffany’s shoulder, damp hair aligning themselves down her shoulder and back. “Why did you run away?”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you do.”

“I can’t answer logically. You won’t understand.”

Jessica lays a hand onto Tiffany’s stomach, and she flinches. On her stomach, she feels the coil of inner muscles, of organs, of flesh, or skin, maybe even deeper than that. Tiffany hardens against her.

“I don’t like that.”

Jessica blinks warily, but doesn’t move except for the slight spreading of her fingers. “Sorry?”

“I don’t like what you’re doing to me.”

“Should I stop—?”

Tiffany whispers sadly, looking at the ceiling, her eyes resembling the murky coffee Jessica can’t stop drinking. “No, please don’t.”

Oh, what Jessica would give to understand how deep Tiffany’s emotions ran, and in which vein lies sadness, in which artery happiness, in which capillary are the tenderness and the love, which one will she have to sever, which one will Tiffany die without.

“You ,” Tiffany breathes hoarsely, cracking laughter that sounds like glass breaking.

Meanwhile, Jessica keeps her brittle emotions on a string.

In her laughter now: “We’re so ed up, aren’t we?”

Jessica can’t look at Tiffany in the face, only at the slight indentations of her collarbone, sliding her fingers up to it. “I know.”

“This kind of thing isn’t what people would consider right.”

“Yeah.”

“So why don’t you go home.”

“But Tiff—”

“Please leave me alone.”

“Okay,” but Jessica does not move. Her arms are numb, ears buzzing with white noise and choked breathing. And Tiffany lets her, because she is too weak to resist to anything.

“It’s love,” Jessica says, her voice caught and scratchy but there is weight in her voice for the purpose of reassuring both Tiffany and herself. “Not the perfect kind. But it’s love and it’s ours so help me keep it. It’s love. Just a different kind.”

In the moments after Jessica picks up her clothes, quietly dresses, and leaves, Tiffany would get up, collect her feelings at the window sill, feeling the monochrome drab of the world, and preferring to count how many inches it will take to reach Jessica’s heart from here.

But by then, Jessica would have already been too far away. And Tiffany would still be the coward who is too afraid to do anything about it.

—ジュリエット