( an unfair comparison: the darkling's tombstone-gray eyes, the crypt of buried human emotion alina had never been able to unearth — if there ever had been anything to unearth but the desiccated bones of a dead boy, too late for alina to save him. a tragic truth: she sees the shadow of him inside of paul, now, a boy whose yet to have his soft flesh whittled down to nothing but the hollow insides of a skeleton. no love, no fear — just the moving parts of a corpse that hadn't died when it was meant to, when the last heartbeat of its humanity seized. someone she could say, if she cared to reach inside the hallowed dirt of his ribcage and force him to feel every piece of him he would rather bury than let her touch.
she hates him for that, a little, too. she hates that she hates him at all.
alina's chin wobbles, in counterpart. too flawed to be anything but alive, upset with her own existence, the wriggling too-feeling organ in her chest. she's all ripples to paul's stillness — a violent tremble in her fingertips, clutching at her sternum like she might rip through her chest, like — she's giving true thought to rearing back and reshaping his nose, the way she'd done to nikolai. her chest labors through it, a swelling rise and fall of her chest as she crumples the can in her head, letting it sail past his head.
it's not satisfying, to hear the pathetic tin dink of it as it slaps into a lamppost. paul's not entirely victimless; sprays of rum and coke join the neon paint slathered messily into his shirt, doing frustratingly little to make him look entirely put-together. unfairly composed, when he's overturned alina's world, as if it was nothing. as if this is nothing, from her, just a child's irrational temper tantrum at the booboo he's caused.
she leans in, hot breath skittering across his face. a pulled-back snarl to her upper lip — the sneer of a monster, the wet eyes of a hurt girl. )
I can try. You would hardly be the first limb I've had to amputate.
( she pushes herself up, ignoring the way her limbs have gone numb, each motion almost mechanical — forcing herself through the emotions, even as it feels like he'd warned. gouging a knife into herself, bleeding out onto the floor, and still trying to drag her dying carcass to safety somewhere else, somewhere other than here. )
I'd spit in your face the way you've just spat on mine, if I didn't think you would take it for a gift. ( her fingers curl, cut into the fleshy pulp of her palms until it hurts, until the scar tissue threatens to tear open to make a new dissecting line. ) You love me. What a joke.
You love me so much you couldn't even tell me so without saying another woman's name. But I suppose I should share that with her and be grateful for it, too, shouldn't I? I don't get to have any part of you for myself.
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she hates him for that, a little, too. she hates that she hates him at all.
alina's chin wobbles, in counterpart. too flawed to be anything but alive, upset with her own existence, the wriggling too-feeling organ in her chest. she's all ripples to paul's stillness — a violent tremble in her fingertips, clutching at her sternum like she might rip through her chest, like — she's giving true thought to rearing back and reshaping his nose, the way she'd done to nikolai. her chest labors through it, a swelling rise and fall of her chest as she crumples the can in her head, letting it sail past his head.
it's not satisfying, to hear the pathetic tin dink of it as it slaps into a lamppost. paul's not entirely victimless; sprays of rum and coke join the neon paint slathered messily into his shirt, doing frustratingly little to make him look entirely put-together. unfairly composed, when he's overturned alina's world, as if it was nothing. as if this is nothing, from her, just a child's irrational temper tantrum at the booboo he's caused.
she leans in, hot breath skittering across his face. a pulled-back snarl to her upper lip — the sneer of a monster, the wet eyes of a hurt girl. )
I can try. You would hardly be the first limb I've had to amputate.
( she pushes herself up, ignoring the way her limbs have gone numb, each motion almost mechanical — forcing herself through the emotions, even as it feels like he'd warned. gouging a knife into herself, bleeding out onto the floor, and still trying to drag her dying carcass to safety somewhere else, somewhere other than here. )
I'd spit in your face the way you've just spat on mine, if I didn't think you would take it for a gift. ( her fingers curl, cut into the fleshy pulp of her palms until it hurts, until the scar tissue threatens to tear open to make a new dissecting line. ) You love me. What a joke.
You love me so much you couldn't even tell me so without saying another woman's name. But I suppose I should share that with her and be grateful for it, too, shouldn't I? I don't get to have any part of you for myself.