I'm wasted, losing time; I'm a foolish, fragile spine
I want all that is not mine; I want him but we're not right
Each moment that passes fills Adaline with more dread. She waits patiently, as patiently as she is able, looking toward the sun and the distant crashing of healing water. Her stomach twists more painfully with each moment though—each second pulling her more and more taut until she is a string that is waiting to snap. She knows, as women always do, that Tyrna was more than just a friend. She knew when her brother said her name that is softened, the intimacy of it curdling Adaline’s blood like poison.
She knows what she is going to face, and yet she has no way of shielding herself for it.
So, perhaps it is foolish, but she decides to find them herself. She simply cannot wait another second longer, her imagination running wild with the what-ifs and maybes. Sucking in a breath of cold air, she moves forward, slowly, carefully, her pulse jittery. Over and over again, she imagines how she will greet them, how she will hold herself with grace, how she will behave with class. Make her mother proud.
But all of that goes out of her head the second she sees them together—the second she sees Tyrna’s lips on her brother’s delicate skin, the second she sees him smile so gently at her. Her head begins to buzz and her mouth goes dry, as she stumbles out of the shadows. “No!” she cries before she can stop it, and the word is a bullet as it leaves her tongue. It is her sickness manifested, and she is shaking, she is crying.
Tears run down her cheeks as she takes another step, falling to her knees, skin tearing and blood splashing on the ground. “No!” she repeats, but it is weaker this time, and she can’t even stand to look at Tyrna, the poison spreading more and more certainly through her as she finds her brother’s face. “I love you, Contagion.” The truth spit out before the universe. “Don’t leave me for her.” A broken, shuddering sob. “Please no.”
in the darkness, I will meet my creators
and they will all agree that I'm a suffocator