Til' Your Scars Fade

(Big) Sister

   Life was dreary. Ritz had stayed the night and all the way into the next morning. Velvet had spend most of the day on the couch thinking about what she had done, and trying to imagine what Veneer was saying to Ritz.

   Was Veneer mad at her? Probably. As mad as Veneer could possibly get, which honestly wasn't very man. He had a tendency to feel hurt over anger.

She hadn't interacted with him other than her poor attempt at an apology. She wondered if his eyes still held fear. Veneer stayed in his room while Ritz fetched him whatever he needed from the kitchen. Finally in the late afternoon, around four, Velvet stood up off the couch and returned to her room.

Still in a daze, she put herself to bed. She slept until around one in the morning. When she woke up and marched out to the porch to have another cigarette, and burnt herself one more time for good measure.

   Her leg hurt but the pain offered some relief to her guilt. She was able to cry a little bit this time, but not enough to satisfy herself. She was really just tearing up more from the pain, it wasn't an emotional cry. What was wrong with her?

    She was going to have to do more than that if she wanted to fix what she had done to Veneer.

   She needed to get him a present. Not clothes, anything but that. Maybe something sweet. Maybe one of those squish pillows he liked. Squish millow? She wasn't sure. All she knew was he had left his box of squish millows at their parents house as she had judged him harshly for having 'toys' and sent a message that he shouldn't bring them to their new apartment.

   Maybe current Veneer would have been strong enough to ignore her harsh judgement and would have brought the things he liked, but Veneer from a year ago was not. He used to hang on every word she said much more. 

   She felt guilty for that now. What was he going to hug when he was sad now? She needed to replace at least one of his plushes. That was settled, a stuffed toy for him and maybe a sweet treat.

   She pictured him not accepting the gifts. That had never happened before. Veneer would not reject her attempts at an apology. Maybe he wouldn't know how to react, but she really hoped he wouldn't reject her.

   Her leg hurt and she was cold. It was time to go inside. She put herself back to bed and slept late into the afternoon.

     She felt gross when she woke up, not having eaten much the day before because of all that had happened and she found she felt particularly achey. She drug herself to the kitchen to scrape something together to eat, and maybe catch a glimpse of Veneer and how he was doing.

   She did in fact see Veneer, but he was facing away and fixing a lunch from the fridge. He had his work apron on, she noticed. He worked at some craft supply store, but she had never been or even asked what it was called.

  "If I drop him off could you pick him up?" Velvet snapped out of her thoughts and turned to Ritz, who was apparently still in her house. Asking her to pick her brother up from work. Of course she would. Veneer could have asked her himself...

  "yeah," she spoke without thinking. Wait, this was perfect! Ritz was going home and Velvet would have Veneer alone in the car to talk to him. She could give him a present then, and tell him she loved him and she was sorry.

   She really was sorry. Her poor excuse for an apology the day prior didn't even seem like it counted. She could make it up to him, maybe surprise him with lunch afterwards.

   She looked up at Veneer to see if he was looking at her, but he was quickly tugging a jacket on over his T-shirt and walking out the door. She couldn't tell if he had taken out his earring. She really wanted to know if she had ruined the piercing. She really hoped she hadn't.
He didn't even look at her. Ritz was following him out the door, and then she was alone.