Stolen Voices ✓

November 1st

I fell into you months ago

and still haven't found my way out.

-Bridgett Devoue

November 1st:

Sometimes life just appears to be motions, and by the end, you're left wondering why. Why did I make a right turn at the stop sign when left could have just as easily been picked. Why did I decide at the last minute not to jump off the cliff? Being left with this hollow in my chest, this strain. Why did I choose to run away from the one thing in my life that was insatiable?

Inevitably, life is a bunch of steps that lead you to death, so why most take those steps of melancholy will never make any sense.

It also never was apparent why nobody spoke of death as if it were a epidemic. The one thing that Mara can agree with the next is that they will all perish. Their novel is to end the same way, with the last page reading the end. It's why she never believed in fairytales, as they didn't show death as the summing-up. Happily ever after has its limits. Once the slot runs out of coins, it stops.

But waking up entangled in his fever, his head in the crook of her neck, his breath against her skin, it makes sense. People chose to believe in fairytales because it is moments like this that are wished to never end. The protection of one's body fixed to you, knowing that through that darkness of why's, they will be there at your end.

Elias is her right turn at the stop sign. Mara buys more coins just so their time will never end. Time is everything they have, and everything they don't, wasted on the motions.

As Mara slips out of his embrace, a smile plastered on her lips because this motion is perfect. The sun slipping through the blinds lands on Elias's exposed back, his muscles straining taught as he rolls over onto his stomach. Hugging his pillow where Mara once was, he sighs, his eyelids fluttering open.

"Morning," he whispers, groaning loudly as the throbbing pain inside his head catches up. His hands clutch his head, his eyes pinching shut as he grumbles into his pillow, a hollow groan.

"Yeah, party boy," Mara chuckles, handing him some ibuprofen and water, "this is what we call a hangover. Would you like the cure?" She sits on the edge of the bed as he folds into her warmth, suddenly cold. His head, falling on her lap, staring up at her with a pout. All the while his fingers fiddle with messy ends of her hair. She brushes her fingers through his thick tresses casually, ignoring the fact they had kissed last night, replacing it with this warmth that heats her cheeks.

"Yes, please, but don't leave me," he murmurs, holding her tighter "you're comfortable."

Her hands fall from his hair, tracing his jawline, trailing her featherlight touch to his chest. Tapping two times against his heart, she scorns his burning gaze. It is quiet in the room, besides the humming refrigerator and the noises seeping through the paper-thin walls. The small quarters smell of man if that is even possible. Like musk and masculinity, all brandish into one.

Will's end of the room is much more a mess than Elias's, with clothes strewn over the floor. A few crumpled dollar bills are left on his nightstand, next to what looks to be an empty prescription bottle of who knows what.

"The kitchen is call my name," Mara goes to move, but she's pinned down by Elias. He groans while moving, half of him is on top of her now. Elias's head, resting against her abdomen, using his massive weight to hold her down.

Mara falls back on the mattress, laughing at his expense.

"Nevermind. Just, stay," he breathes, sitting up so he can look her in the eye. She smiles coyly, leaning against the wall behind her, just gazing. She can analyze Elias for hours as he is truly remarkable, a work of pure fiction. His face structure is sharp as the knife she wields, his eyes a piercing brown.