Curtainfic challenge
May. 16th, 2003 09:35 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
jenboo.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ds_flashfictionA image came to my mind immediately when I read the challenge for this week and I knew this was what I had to write. 577 words.
I snuck in while the family was at the viewing. It was appropriate that the house was deathly quiet. Any noise in her room would have felt like sacrilege.
I climbed up the damn vine again. It was easier this time. I guess the other night I was just out of practice. Or maybe it was because I knew she wasn’t there to help me up this time.
No one had been in here yet to straighten up or pack away her things. I closed my eyes and inhaled and smelled her, smelled the tea she’d been drinking that night. When I opened them again, I saw the bag she’d packed. The last time I saw that, I almost tripped over it carrying her down the stairs, bleeding in my arms.
God, there was so much blood. I think I knew even then, running out of the house with her, that she wasn’t going to make it. I think that’s why I didn’t cry at the hospital. Even though there was a knife twisting in my gut, a claw trying to scratch my chest open to let my heart bleed all over everything.
I wasn’t even sure why I was here. I guessed I just needed some time alone with her and this was the best way I could think of to do it.
It had felt so good to hold her again. I’d forgotten how good it felt. And some stupid part of me thought maybe it could really happen this time, maybe it could really work. I could get Frankie out of the way and have Irene to myself and finally be the big man for once. Take down the Zuko family and get the girl as the prize. To the victor go the spoils.
Only there wasn’t any victor in this war. There never can be. At least not the way I tried to do it. There’s just a lot of spoiled lives left.
Sitting on the end of her bed, I took a deep shuddering breath and felt warm drops of water start to cool on my hands. I laid back and something bunched up under my back startled me. I pulled it out and sat up again, holding it up in the light from the street lamp to see what it was.
I recognized the fabric right off, just like I did when Irene wrapped me up in it that night. I slid off the bed and down onto the floor, wrapping the bed curtain around my shoulders and pulling the ends of it to my face to soak up the salt water as I finally cry for her, for lost opportunities, for lost love.
She was right when she said someone was going to have to die before Frankie and me quit going at each other. I only wish it hadn’t been her.
“Goodbye, Irene. I swear to you and to God that this thing is over.”
I don’t know how long I sat there and cried on her bedroom floor, wrapped in those curtains. But finally I felt cried out and I knew I had to get out of there before the family got home. I’d said my goodbyes. It was time to move on.
So I climbed back down the vine and got into the Riv and headed for West Racine, hoping to God that I could salvage the only good thing left in my life; my friendship with Benny.
I snuck in while the family was at the viewing. It was appropriate that the house was deathly quiet. Any noise in her room would have felt like sacrilege.
I climbed up the damn vine again. It was easier this time. I guess the other night I was just out of practice. Or maybe it was because I knew she wasn’t there to help me up this time.
No one had been in here yet to straighten up or pack away her things. I closed my eyes and inhaled and smelled her, smelled the tea she’d been drinking that night. When I opened them again, I saw the bag she’d packed. The last time I saw that, I almost tripped over it carrying her down the stairs, bleeding in my arms.
God, there was so much blood. I think I knew even then, running out of the house with her, that she wasn’t going to make it. I think that’s why I didn’t cry at the hospital. Even though there was a knife twisting in my gut, a claw trying to scratch my chest open to let my heart bleed all over everything.
I wasn’t even sure why I was here. I guessed I just needed some time alone with her and this was the best way I could think of to do it.
It had felt so good to hold her again. I’d forgotten how good it felt. And some stupid part of me thought maybe it could really happen this time, maybe it could really work. I could get Frankie out of the way and have Irene to myself and finally be the big man for once. Take down the Zuko family and get the girl as the prize. To the victor go the spoils.
Only there wasn’t any victor in this war. There never can be. At least not the way I tried to do it. There’s just a lot of spoiled lives left.
Sitting on the end of her bed, I took a deep shuddering breath and felt warm drops of water start to cool on my hands. I laid back and something bunched up under my back startled me. I pulled it out and sat up again, holding it up in the light from the street lamp to see what it was.
I recognized the fabric right off, just like I did when Irene wrapped me up in it that night. I slid off the bed and down onto the floor, wrapping the bed curtain around my shoulders and pulling the ends of it to my face to soak up the salt water as I finally cry for her, for lost opportunities, for lost love.
She was right when she said someone was going to have to die before Frankie and me quit going at each other. I only wish it hadn’t been her.
“Goodbye, Irene. I swear to you and to God that this thing is over.”
I don’t know how long I sat there and cried on her bedroom floor, wrapped in those curtains. But finally I felt cried out and I knew I had to get out of there before the family got home. I’d said my goodbyes. It was time to move on.
So I climbed back down the vine and got into the Riv and headed for West Racine, hoping to God that I could salvage the only good thing left in my life; my friendship with Benny.
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Date: 2003-05-16 09:57 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2003-05-16 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-16 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-16 10:43 pm (UTC)We don't really mention the actor much here, but I think it's the best performance I've ever seen David Marciano give.
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Date: 2003-05-16 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-16 10:45 pm (UTC)and thank you for the kind words!
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Date: 2003-05-17 08:45 am (UTC)-R
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Date: 2003-05-17 09:13 pm (UTC)