I will commit my soul to your door tonight, and I'll last 'til the gas fumes float on higher
Her life had not turned into the easy one she had thought she would have as a child. She remembers being young and sun-drenched and full of promise. She had been so sweet and full of life—so ready to face a world that had nothing but good things in front of her. Even in the bitterest of moments in her childhood, she had been shielded enough in the moment to think there was nothing but good waiting for her.
It was only later in the retrospective thoughtfulness of adulthood that it had changed.
Now, she knows life as a bitter thing. Even the sweetness—love found, for example—was stained with the bitter. Her love for Beth is an all-consuming thing. She drowns in it on some days. Feels the way that it wraps around her throat and pulls her under. Especially when he is moody and distant. When his love feels cold and uncertain—when she watches him from afar with hooded eyes and wonders.
But even that dims in comparison to the worry she feels for her daughter. The venom that simmers in her own veins having grown exponentially in her offspring. Gospel is a beautiful, dangerous thing, and she knows to fear her. Knows that eventually it will be the death of her, or of Beth, which is the same thing.
So she is grateful when her father finds her. Grateful that she has put to bed anything but love for him so that she can fold into his chest and close her eyes against him. She relishes the moment where she is but a young girl pressed against him and hot tears spring to her eyes when she feels him kiss the top of her head like he has done so many times before. “It’s okay,” she murmurs, and she feels like a child for it.
When he pulls back, she forces herself to straighten, to try and pretend that she is an adult. She looks at him, her sage eyes wide, blurry with tears. “I don’t know how I got it so wrong,” she whispers, looking to the horizon. “I loved her so much and I don’t think it mattered. How did I fail so much?”
in a dying love I'm nothing but a stone cold liar but, oh, I got an iron in that fire
