aching bones, aching teeth

03 - as his son

You giggle lowly, and she stares at you a bit mad, but then you both laugh.

— I just pretend, actually — you confess — I pretend I'm in a vintage dollhouse and I need to leave like a barbie doll... except like the house is in the middle of nowhere, with only two ken's and there's not even plastic food...

At that, Jackie laughs loudly, shaking her head at your words.

— You truly know how to live in a fantasy world, tiq.

She called you the nickname she had given you when you entered the team, tiq because of the tic tac of a clock, since you would make the sound every time you were nervous —that and your crippling anxiety over routine and times, you always wanted everyone in the field at least fifteen minutes before the game started.

— We need this, you know... there's no way of this working if we don't stay positive — you say, pressing your lips together as you put the good berries on a different cup, the bad ones on another so you could make jam or something like that — I put on ribbons and pretty dresses, and pretend I'm just going to a party on the woods... pretend I'm just... just the same.

Jackie walks over at you, sitting by your side and hugging you. She kisses your forehead, taking a deep breath.

— You know... you could put some ribbons on my hair...

Your eyes lighted up and you quickly put the cups on the bed, running to your bag and getting up a set of white ribbons, giggling as you sat behind Jackie, ready to doll her up.

The first nights were okay, the other ones were bearable, but these? Oh, these were horrifying... Charlotte could not even grasp when or where it all changed, but what seemed to be a fun trip to the woods, where they forgot all of their resources, turned into a fulltime nightmare, where not even sleeping she was free... Perhaps, she just had finally stopped being able to fool herself.

What made it possible for her to not lose herself to madness was the lake. A place where she was reborn —and washed away from her sins.

No, not all her sins, she was still alive after all.

Where to go when you are lost on yourself?

That's right, you stay stuck —and thats what she felt, floating on the cold water of the river, wishing for things to change. Just wishing and wishing with nothing happening.

Charlotte always tried her best to help people out, to make the tragedies that she felt turn into something useful, but to no avail, no one ever listened to what she had to warn.

"Why do you insist on saving the sacrificial lamb, Charlotte?"

Well, don't all living things deserve a chance to live?

Half of Lottie wanted to take the lamb upon her arms and watch it grow into a pretty sheep. The other half was ready to lick its bones.

Lottie loved the gray skies way more than people seemed to love those orange-pink sunsets. She pictured the Gods watching over humans with a filter lens —because yes, she thought that there was more than only one God, no, she prayed for it; Maybe in a trial, she would have more chances of forgiveness.

— What are your thoughts on loneliness, Laura?

She looked over at Laura Lee, expectantly, always imagining the girl had all of the answers.

— I don't know, it's hard to talk about loneliness when I don't feel it.

— You never feel alone? — Charlotte asks, frowning. It felt impossible to her.