Ani

The city looked so quiet from up on the hill. It looked peaceful, lovely. I’d been there before, it was full of shit, with layers of perfume over it in hopes the shit would smell less. But the thought of the city was a good idea like an “I’m fine” said in hopes that the word will make the pain go away someday. Some day tomorrow, or the next year, or the next five. There are so many good ideas in the world, that of course we are cities built of shit and perfume. 

I hear Lance in the dark. Sometimes, no matter how precious a person is, you still curl around your stinging gashes. When the Vandari know they will die they go out into the woods, far away from anyone. The most social and loving people I have ever met choose to die alone in the woods. I asked Chive why once, and she smiled and said there were many answers. She said most people dream of dying heroes with loved ones gathered around on the battlefield, or quietly in their sleep next to their love. She said most people don’t get these deaths, and she didn’t want the people that would bury her to have their last memory of her be a painful one, or at least more painful than it had to be. I like this, I like Chive, but I don’t think that’s why they really do it. I think that when you know you can’t be fixed you try to escape the people who love you enough that they will try anything to fix you. 

Lance doesn’t sign anything, doesn’t ask. I hope that he doesn’t know. I am only making sound after all, and a little at that. I like how calm Lance is. Everyone else I know is loud in too many ways to describe. I, myself, am a raging bullet of noise. He is a riverstone so smooth and round and solid you slip it into your pocket just to feel the reassuring weight of it. 

“Do you think we’ll survive this dumb ass quest?” I ask him.

“ I don’t know, maybe some of us.” I know he can see my hands shaking.

“I hope I don’t. Don’t give me that face! You know it’s the best way for me to go…faster than kidney failure, that’s for sure”. I hate eyes, they are so stupid, who literally needs them anyways, not me that’s who. “A bug” I sign before he asks.

“Ani…the way you eat up this life…what are you running from?”

I don’t think the stars are really this shiny, but they twinkle when I see them like this, through water. I want to be known, I don’t, but I really, really do. Lance won’t hurt me. I know that, that’s not what I’m afraid of. But saying things, writing things, means I’ve really thought them, means they are really there. 

“...”

“...”

“I used to be a good person Lance.” He just waits, wraps his arm around me, just waits. “I used to be a good person, and honestly, I can’t even blame her. When I felt everything slipping out from under me…when I realized what was happening … I am such a bitch. Adriel says I should spend less time hating myself, but he doesn’t understand, I was a good person once upon a time. It’s not like I didn’t try, not like I haven’t tried every second of every day for a year. But my brain is the brain of a drunkard. I look down and the stairs I wanted to take aren’t there. I have control, somewhere, but I also don’t.”