sweethearts

𝟏𝟖 • the invitation

(trigger warning: homophobia, violence)

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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
"THE INVITATION"
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SWEAT CURLS DOWN HER neck as she mindlessly walks around the crowded courtyard. Her blonde hair frizzed at the humidity of the hot afternoon. Alíz could've unzipped her jumpsuit and brought it down to her waist, but she was not adamant about revealing her weak frame to the surrounding women. It was embarrassing.

She was ashamed of her sickly-looking limbs. It was bad enough that she knew what she had been reduced to—she didn't need everybody else to be aware of that fact too.

Alíz exhales slowly as she ponders her past few days in the penitentiary. Corrie DeLuca has been getting uncomfortably close to Alíz recently. The girl could feel her eyes on her, watching her. Out of the corner of her eye, Alíz can always spot Corrie's familiar figure. To try and distract herself from the stress building up in the back of her mind, Alíz developed a habit of popping her knuckles individually.

She tried to focus her attention on the brief but satisfying noises of her now aching fingers. Alíz fiddles with her hands as she continues her daily walk.

The girl had developed a routine over the past week. As the world felt like it was falling apart around her, this was her last attempt at grasping a sense of normalcy. Normalcy, however great it may have sounded, didn't grant her peace from her nightmares. For the most part, it was the same dream every night, but sometimes it would change from the usual.

This dream began reoccurring with as much frequency as Jerome dying at her feet. In this nightmare instead of Jerome dying, it was Alíz who ended up dead. But, it wasn't Jerome who killed her.

The dream always started with Alíz running from something or someone. She doesn't see who or what she's running away from, but she feels like she knows them. Her footwork is sloppy, she just wants to get away from whatever was chasing her. Her brain was sending out sirens in her head telling her to never stop running, and she didn't hesitate to listen to them.

And with every time she stumbled, the thing chasing her gained on her. It was like Alíz was playing a video game that she massively sucked at. After what felt like years of running, they grab at her ankles; Alíz trips and falls on her face. She could feel the weight of them on her back, pushing her down as hard as they could and leaving no room for her to move.

She could feel every ounce of oxygen leaving her lungs the longer they press down. Alíz felt herself reaching out for something, but she didn't know what. But as she kept trying, the more the energy was being drained from her body. Her own heaviness couldn't grant her the will to move any longer, leaving her paralyzed on the ground with nobody to help her.

She then feels something stab into her back and through her heart as if the pain of somebody crushing the life out of her didn't ensure the perpetrator that she was truly dead. They needed to stab her just to be safe. One stab led to four stabs which led to even more erratic stabs to the girl's back.

Alíz didn't know how she could still feel them doing this, but she did. She stayed still through it all until one final gut-wrenching stab echoed throughout her brain and she woke up.

It did not help that the first person she saw when she woke up in the morning was Corrie DeLuca. Alíz wouldn't say she was sick of seeing her face, she was just sick of Corrie's attitude. The DeLuca girl was a pleasant-looking woman. But then, she opens her mouth and says the ugliest things about Alíz. Her endless taunting seemingly came out of nowhere. When Alíz and her were in their shared cell, Corrie was somewhat tolerable. But when they were outside their cell, all Alíz heard Corrie say about her was just petty insults, digs at her looks, and all-around demeaning jokes about Alíz being a lesbian.