Stolen Voices ✓

December 1st

"That was a smooth way of me asking you to come home with me for winter break," he smiles, a dark eyebrow quirked in questioning.

"Oh, sorry," she sighs dramatically, "I have bonding plans with my family and all that, so it looks like I will be busy. Maybe next year?"

Mara's family never celebrates Christmas in the usual sense. It is always big and extravagant decorations for functions, the house has to look nice for the guests. But on Christmas morning, they never opened presents together. Happy, dressed in uniform, will just bring them to their chambers. Gifts from grandparents, never their parents, who often forget. As a little girl, Mara had always been in wonderment about Santa coming through the chimney. To eat the cookies she'd hidden next to the fireplace, one she hand-baked herself.

But like most things in her childhood, it was ruined by Darla, who diminished any real fantasy she could have. Over the years, Mara began detesting any sort of celebration, her parents using them as political stances. They are models to be framed on the wall, perfect children who don't create mayhems. She went with it for a while to please her mother, hiding out in her room.

When she met Ryn, though, her absence started off slow. Missing celebrations such as Easter and Thanksgiving. Ryn's adoptive parents were more absent than Mara's, often having to take business trips around the holidays. So they formed a sort of alliance, every special day was spent with them together, including birthdays.

"Cute," he rolls his eyes, "your coming."

"I don't like this shift, Eli. I'm supposed to be the pants in the relationship," she rolls her eyes, poking his chest teasingly. Elias smiles, his lips tugging upwards into a smirk at her words.

"I like you without pants."

---

The weather shifts dramatically the farther North they progress, once gravel roads are now blanketed in fresh white powder. The trees, once vibrant with vitality, are dusted white, barren of any leaves. The air conditioning is being replaced by the heater as their breath swirls in the car. Christmas carols, playing on the radio, filling the stillness with the carols of The Jackson Five.

Will, now helplessly in love with this new girl named Della, has attempted to woo her with a getaway to Barbados. For that reason, he's allowed Mara and Elias his car, a convertible much suiter for the summertime weather. Its tires, struggling to grip onto the icy highways, Elias fingertips white on the steering wheel as he grips onto it.

"You need to loosen up, babe," Mara says, looking up from her place deep inside a book. She made Elias stop at the library before they left, so she would have plenty to do for the twenty-hour car journey. Time seems wasted once in the realms of a good book, losing yourself in the words you don't realize the action going around you. For instance, the ice-slick roads Elias struggles to drive while Mara mindlessly flips onto the next crisp page.

"Why don't you drive then, babe," he patronizes, Mara glances at him out of the corner of her eye, almost as clear as the white world around them. She smiles sweetly, flipping onto the next page.

"I don't have a license anymore," she answers, tracing the fog that conceals the window. The inside of the vehicle, much warmer than the outside, makes the condensation build, Mara traces out a heart. It fogs back up, not even seconds later, having to retrace her illustration.

"How did you drive us around all that time?" Elias chirps, his eyebrows furrowed as he looks towards her incredulously. He'd gotten his license over the summer of Mara, when he decided her heedless driving was terrifying enough.

"I never said I don't know how to drive. Just not legally," she shrugs her shoulders as if the most simplistic explanation. Growing up under scrutiny, you'd think Mara would have a judgment of rules. It may very well be that upcoming, however, that makes her want to break every single one.

Or her friendship with Ryn, whose uncanny ability to manipulate is intriguing to Mara's talent.

"That's just wrong," he chuckles, his knuckles turning even whiter as he comes around a bend in the road, the back tires swerving.

"If you're so afraid of death, you'll never live, Eli," she says in a sing-songy voice, twirling her fingers in a circle as if answering all the world's questions. The promiscuity of death is so terrifying to people but assured it will come. Mara would much rather spend her time enjoying what little time of life she does have than counting down the minutes until they are spent. Everyone will all run out of time in the end.

Mara has never considered college, assuming she'd be dead by then. Not that she was afraid of that philosophy, she just never imagined looking that far ahead into the future. She is smart, but the kind of genius that is better spent hand deep in society than stuck behind a desk. And with manic episodes, her end seemed a lot more near than most.

"Mm," he takes her hand, twisting their fingers together, "I love you."

"Yeah, yeah. Just because I'm not afraid of death doesn't mean I want to die," she motions towards the road, a smirk on her lips. Elias chuckles, squeezing her fingers two times before returning his hand towards the steering wheel. The smile painted on his face never falters the closer to home he drives. Watching the world shift before his eyes in curiosity, rather than focusing on the gray.

He is living. This is living.

- Elias's Journal -

To my Mara,

To live is to not exist,

But to breathe.

Respiration,

That doesn't seize

When the world seems

Harsh and crude.

And you find light

In those around you

Or that special one

A girl or a boy.

I found my sun.

I love you.

---

Authors Note:

This is more a filler meant to set up the next few chapters.

Also, haven't written poetry in a while, it's rusty.

Thoughts?

Like, comment, and follow.

- Nia

Edited 4/12/22