Valley of the Dolls

(ii) About The Destruction Of An Island

          Blair skipped over branches littering the ground and made sure not to scrape herself with a few thorns that emerged from the ground. A load-truck passed close by behind her and she barely even spared a glance at it before grabbing a bottle hidden between the bushes and throwing it in an open black, plastic trash-bag. Under a leaf, she found a yellow post-it with what looked like coordinates on top of it, and she frowned before crumbling up and shoving it in her pocket with the unspoken mission to check it out later, when the internet was back to functional.

          "Hey, did you come across Dad and Miss Lana?" Blair asked her brother, who was leaning against a tree up until he saw her and pushed himself off, shoving his phone in his pocket. "They seemed really freaked out."

"Her husband's probably cheating on her or something," Rafe shrugged. Blair frowned at the theory, not at all plausible. "You got any cigarettes?"

          "Pack's in my room," she said.

          Rafe grimaced. She held out the rose lemonade bottle and he took it, taking a swing before putting it right back in her hand. "Sage's got some Gauloises in his stash, if you want," he told her. He rummaged through his pockets for a 20$ bill and handed it to her. "I think he's at the marina."

"Noted," Blair pursed her lips and nodded. "D'you go get the generators Dad wanted?"

"Yeah," he often spoke with heavy breaths. "And I got myself a bike with the leftover money." Rafe's lips twitched at the corner into a small smirk and Blair stifled a smile. Truth was, he used all the money to buy the dirt bike, but she didn't need to know that. "You'll be the first one to see it."

          "Can't wait," Blair smiled and took a sip of her lemonade. It was cold and it trickled down her warm throat like acid, like ice encasing her whole body.

As nature would have it, the sky was already cleared up and the sun was dawning upon them like the life-source it was. Except she was wearing black shorts and the dark denim was catching the light like panels, sticky against the skin underneath. She ran her fingers under the hem in an attempt to pull it away from the skin of her stomach, like the soft underbelly of a snake except hers was tan, toned, and crying out from the acidity of her organs. She was a bitter person, so what? She managed to hide it well enough with smiles and snarky comments that turned it all into a sweet crimson-dripping inside joke.

Rafe and her had empty conversations like most siblings do, and it would appear normal for a distance unless you knew the boy or, in that case, the boy who favored Blair over his other sisters. And it wasn't a secret thing, he said it out loud multiple times and didn't mind them knowing that the prima-donna was his favorite. Because she didn't treat him like he was a failed swipe of their father's credit card, a boy whose college gap year would no doubt last a lot more than what he told people.

And he didn't treat her like she was porcelain, the poor girl whose mother picked another family over hers. Granted, his mother wasn't in the picture either, but it hurt a lot more knowing all that was going on through postcards than just bathing in sweet, sweet ignorance. Sometimes, Sarah struggled on the tightrope Ward dressed around the girl, Wheezie, too. But Rafe never did. Maybe it was because he didn't care if he said anything offending or because he knew that she preferred him being a normal brother than one who constantly treated her like a child walking in a kitchen with sharp shards on the floor. Wherever she turned, someone had a broom in hand and was trying to pick up her mess. And it didn't matter how many times she said she was fine on her own, her father would coddle her and Sarah would creep into her room whenever a new postcard from somewhere in Europe came through the mail with a beaming picture of Georgia Rutherford and whoever she was screwing then.