Blood on My Hands

My bitten tongue was the only defense in stopping me from exploding on this girl. All my pent up frustration, anger, guilt, were boiling to the point of reprieve. How could she say that I did not care? Hell yes I did, and yes I did want to fight, she could not ask me that in jest. The iron in my mouth was the only thing that withheld my fists as I stared down her pathetic attempts at retribution.

I steadied myself, on fire with an emotion only known to me as chaos, and held my gaze. Sensing I was in no mood to forgive, no mood of mercy, she suddenly reversed, I could hear the gears grinding, as she suddenly sped out on the offense. How dare she criticize me.

Ears pounding, fast with heartbeat, barely understanding her words, only the reverberating “you don’t care” replayed on the continuous thread of my thoughts. You don’t care. You don’t care. Fuck you. You don’t know any of the turmoil I have endured these past months, almost a year now. The wretched sorrow in my breast, preventing me from ever reaching a state of relief; the guilt, the regret, the helpless at a situation that I have created. How long have I been trying to render this justified—to no avail—or fix her heart? Long before you were ever in the equation.

So shut up. Shut the hell up. I may not know you, but the hate in my blood is thickening, my fists are white, and you keep talking.  “…you don’t understand. Listen to me, don’t you get that you are such a bitch? Why are you even here? You don’t understand what you’ve done to her..” Drooling blood, the dam has broken; my heart has broken; my moral judgments have broken; I have broken.

At that final “her” I dropped any lasting attempts at the pretense of friends, and in two steps was at her neck.  Her delicately pale throat, which had innocently mocked me through the night, was now upon a storm of scratches and fists, as was her chest and cheeks. I could see nothing but her, and even barely so; my body was pure emotion. The angel of anger I imagined I must be, for no swipe from her could touch me; there was no pain; I was invincible. With a quick step forward I landed with foot behind hers, and with hand to throat I forced her down. In this unexpected onslaught she met the floor with suicidant-to-concrete force. Straddling atop her torso, I prepared to deliver her to fate, but she did not retaliate.

Our breaths, heavy with exhaustion, penetrated the eerie nighttime quietness. Thought and sight returned to my otherwise blank mind, as the passion that fueled the fight reached its peak. My first thought that infiltrated with the sight of her messed hair, slick sweat, and sharp eyes was how we could just as well be about to sex as we were to fight. Although this thought passed through very quickly for however much I could kiss her, I hated her three times over.

Her treacherous act of pseudo-surrender bought my hesitation, for which she then exploited by shoving, pushing, twisting, in any way thought probable to gain her freedom. But she was no match to me and my emotional adrenaline infected blood, which was now leaking between my fists, mouth, and chest, to hers. Seizing her wrists and forcing them above her head I screamed, screamed my heart out in hopes it would reach some nerve of understanding.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? Who are you to tell me of what I’ve done and what I am and what I should feel? You don’t know me. You only know one thing, one fucking thing. And yes, for that I have to live with the burden of sorrow and regret weighing on me forever. So often I have to think of her, what I’ve done to her, how I could take it back from her, but I can’t. I’ve been trying so hard, that’s why I’m here, to make things right, to fix my wrongs, to help her move on, if she doesn’t want me--” She thought I had begun to soften, but the emotions only strengthened my grips when she began to once again struggle to be rid me from atop her. “Look at me! Listen to me! I am a bitch, I know, I admit. And you’re the best friend, you are supposed to be here trying to help her, help her get over me. How can you say I failed her, what job have you done to persuade her heart elsewhere?” In the momentary pause for breath, a whisper of a noise caused a sudden change in perspective, and there she was, at the doorway behind me. Shit! Shit, shit, shit! We woke her! The angel herself stood in confusion, eyes wide at the discovery of her two so-called-friends having fought to the point of spilled blood. I cannot recall if she screamed, or stifled the scream I imagined, but she was at us in an instant, demanding reasons, demanding consolations.

Her name was the only word that escaped my lips as the chaos tried find order within my mind. “What?!” she pleaded exasperatedly. But I had no response; I could not allow her to know she was the reason of our fight. “Can you go get her some ice?”
Caught between logic of the visible signs of soon-to-be bruises and the desire to wring a confession, her eyes darted with emanating pain amid the two of us before rising to her feet and slowly making her way back out the door. Utilizing the last moments of our solitude, I got right in Julia’s face, “Don’t you dare say I don’t love her. You still don’t know shit about me and who I am. I love her, and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I’m trying, for her sake, to stop loving her. Oka-”

And then Kelly was a cold presence at my side, Ziplocs of ice in hand. Meekly I offered a smile, swallowing my embarrassment as I began systematically inspecting my own wounds. Knuckles were torn as if by rug, chest ripped as if by tiger, and I could feel an indent just above the jaw line of my cheek still slightly erupting blood. Using my sleeve to wipe it away, I began to inspect the damage I had inflicted. Her chest, the visible parts exposed by the explicitly cut shirt, was striped with cuts that still bled, her neck already begun to turn from red to purple, and her lip was twice its size and stained with iron-tasting stickiness.

In my absentminded observations the very end of my sleeve had turned black from the blood it had collected of my cheek and knuckles. Disgustedly I removed my ragged shirt, careful not to meet the eye contact of the girl I was straddling nor the girl to my right, and began blotting Julia’s chest and lip with the opposite sleeve.
For hours we remained like this, locked in our solemn thoughts. Or so it seemed. It was more or less a few minutes, before Kelly broke the silence, “So you guys wanna tell me what happened?” Her hazel eyes burned. No longer had they the look of confusion, but rather the look of loss, of pain, of shame. “Or shall I guess?” Having broken the gaze my eyes found Julia’s, but I couldn’t read hers. I just met her tonight, and her eyes were guised, hidden behind a pretense of innocence. I saw a look that read “I hate you” as much as it read “I’m sorry” and I could not take the chance of confusing the two.

Awkward in the encasing silence, I began to open my mouth, she, after all, did deserve some sort of explanation, but, thinking of nothing other than lies, I shut it once again. Instead I pushed myself up, off of Julia, and onto my feet. Standing, slowly gaining my balance, I groped in the dark for obstacles as I noiselessly made my way to the bathroom.

Being able to see not three feet in front of me, what should have taken thirty seconds lasted over two minutes and I still had not reached the other side of the room when I first heard them speak. Beyond the piercing quiet I strained to hear the conversation, “…I only was telling her how she had hurt you, and she came at me…” Although I closed my eyes, nothing changed; I could still hear them and see darkness. Resolving to make noise, I ran the remaining yards to my haven and shut the door behind me.

Once I had knocked the picture off the wall and found the light I began to adjust to the flood of apocalyptic brightness. In the mirror I met a broken girl who seemed to have just fought off a vampire: stained in blood under disheveled hair and cheap corset. As I ran the tap, I tried to imagine how an outsider would see me, how Kelly had perceived me before Julia started to squeal. A beautiful girl, caught between desire and vengeance, that’s what I was. I was caught between loving and hating, between wanting and not wanting to want, between past and future.

As the water finally began to clear and the last signs of violence vanished from the sleeves, tears had begun their journey as the adrenaline diluted and left my body weak. Yielding to it, I buried my head in hands, letting arms and chin draw in the coolness of the counter, to temper the fire within. Not the burning passion-filled fire of the previous hour, but the burning sensation of regret and pain of another charred my insides. Indirectly I prayed that Kelly could forgive us.

Lost in the rhythmic tune of the flowing water and the sorrow of my own tears, I never heard the door open, but somehow arms reached from behind and encircled my waist. A cheek rested upon my back. My tears, though rejuvenated, were not of pain, but rather from relief.

When the muscles in my throat relaxed, I closed the faucet and turned to face her. “I,” I began, before my throat cut me off. Two or three times I tried to get passed that “I” but in vain, and the tears built up behind my eyes once more. Hopelessly I looked at her, into her eyes, and tried to convey my words.
Taking control, she filled the silence, “Julia told me what happened, Natalie. It’s okay.” But no, it wasn’t okay, I was supposed to be fixing things and here I was causing more drama, in Julia’s own house nonetheless. Why did I always screw things up so bad around Kelly? Only her, and always her.

“I’m sorry,” I finally managed, before burying my face into the crook of her neck. And as she wrapped her arms around me, once again the passionate fire sparked in my breast. I snuck a look at the mirror, and what I beheld was no longer the victim, but now the vampire herself. With that I courage I took the plunge, and softly kissed her neck, holding my breath for her to subsequently tense up. Like clockwork, I felt the familiar pull of muscle and the slight hesitation in breathing, as if she cannot think and breathe in tandem. She pulled back, taking my chin in hand, steadying the gaze between us. In that moment her eyes, one with mine, shared more of herself than ever before, and I was inside her, as she was inside me. No secrets could exist and I found myself confessing more than I ever wanted to share in three simple words.

Realizing my taboo I reared back in wait of her explosion of burrowed anger—except it never came. Instead, Kelly leaned in and what had been her neck were now her lips, smooth and delicate. I grew quickly lost within her kisses, melting, bowing, to her. Unaware of all repercussions, of all previous promises, of all else beyond her hands—warm to healing cuts—her stomach—tight and soft against mine—and her lips—bending and breaking with mine, we ran with our desires.