Week 1 - You Gave Everything You Possibly Could

[talonkarrde]

They say that with hindsight, you should be able to see the stress lines, the miniature fractures, the spiderweb of cracks...

...but I don't. Not after a hundred times of replaying us in my mind, from beginning to end, all six months. I run through the moments we shared, those glittering memories with razor blade edges, and no matter how hard I try, I can't come up with an explanation.

It was perfect.

And then it was over.

A week before, we had gone out to dinner and danced the night away.

I remember her fingers toying with my hair, her arms on my shoulders, and leaning in, cheek to cheek, whispering how happy I was and how I had made the right choice to move.

It had been across the country, Seattle to New York, leaving everything I had ever known behind.

I remember every word, every touch, every kiss. I told her just how much she meant to me and how it was worth it, completely, absolutely.

I remember her nails down my back, her mouth on my neck, her fingers on my lips.

-

It was a candlelit dinner, topped off with a bottle from Bordeaux, something fancy for us to enjoy. It started as a quiet celebration, a moment together, a reaffirmation of everything we were.

It ended with a jagged, serrated string of words that gutted me from neck to belly, leaving me bleeding while she watched, dispassionate. Clinical.

"...because you just aren't it, that's why," she says to me, calmly, inspecting her nails as my world ends.

I say something, I think, and something else, words and phrases and protestations and graspings at a collapsing mirage.

She reaches up to me, one finger dark with wine, and I caught her instinctively, before she reaches my lips but then what? I am frozen, unable to move, to think, to do anything but breathe.

Numbly, blindly, I find her palm and I press my lips to it, one second, two, pressing my life, my love into her skin.

I left it there.

And then I'm gone, gone from the pieces of my life and future scattered over that table, that couch, that bed.

Gone from that world.



---

The other side of this intersection is fourzoas' Chillin' Like a Villain, which you should absolutely read.

Comments

[fourzoas.livejournal.com]

Thanks for partnering with me! I had a great time, and I quite love your piece this week!

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

It was an honor!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rabidwombat_/]

Numbly, blindly, I find her palm and I press my lips to it, one second, two, pressing my life, my love into her skin.

I left it there.

And then I'm gone, gone from the pieces of my life and future scattered over that table, that couch, that bed.

Gone from that world.

It is sad, but I like it.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[medleymisty.livejournal.com]

Very nice metaphors here, I think. :)

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[myrna-bird.livejournal.com]

Hopefully he will find the right woman for him, someday. Very good intersection pieces!

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Someday. But it's certainly not her!

[notodette.livejournal.com]

The first line really had me, and I loved the whole thing. The shell-shock is made so clear.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Thank you :)

[halfshellvenus.livejournal.com]

Beautifully written, and I can see why the ending was such a jolt-- it seemingly came from nowhere, and was so much crueller than it needed to be.

Lovely phrasing in the ending.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Thank you, very much!

[whipchick.livejournal.com]

Really enjoyed the way your pieces complemented each other, and especially the use of the fractured/jagged/edged details.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Thanks! fourzoas is amazing, and it was an honor to work with her.

[n3m3sis43.livejournal.com]

I felt so bad for this poor guy, and I loved the common details between your piece and your partner's. Really nicely done. :)

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

I like close intersections :)

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

I like seeing both sides of this scene. Well done!

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[cheshire23.livejournal.com]

I love the contrast between "her" calm and the narrator's...not.

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

She is, after all, chillin' :)

[witches.livejournal.com]

This is very intense and heartfelt. Lovely!

[streetnights.livejournal.com]

Thank you!