Sandpaper

seven

Charlie sits hunched over the bar, thin fingers grasping the tumbler in her hand. And Eleanor thinks it's the first time the dark-eyed girl has ever ordered water. She's gulping it down like she drinks liquor until she can feel her insides sloshing with water, stomach digging into her ribs. She's not really sure what to say to the girl with the cracked lips and the bruises lining her jaw, sides, thighs, wrists. She thinks maybe she should call someone, yeah, that'd be a good idea. But then Charlie slams the glass down on the mahogany and swallows hard. Her lips part to let out a strangled breath and her eyes are fixed on something Eleanor can't see.

"Does it ever stop hurting Lennon?"

It's a name only the girl with the dark eyes and bruises has ever called her, and she thinks she likes it. Maybe.

It's been three and a half months since she first showed up all calloused hands and words scratching her throat. She was drunk even before she stepped into the small dive of a bar, her right knee was bleeding and her thin fingers were wrapped around the neck of a bottle of vodka. It's been three and a half months since Charlie started showing up here, picking fights with people twice her size, going home with sleazy men, and practically running Eleanor out of alcohol every night. But the girl had never said anything about what she was trying to drown. She had never said anything to Lennon besides cursing at her for not providing the alcohol fast enough.

But as soon as the words leave her lips the bartender just knows. And she feels her knees buckle, digs her nails into the wood of the bar top because this girl had been coming here for three and a half months now and she was so fucking broken that Lennon can't help but cut herself on all the goddamn pieces. "No. It doesn't."

Charlie thinks it's the most honest thing she's heard in three in a half months. Her nails are digging into the glass tumbler filled with water and she still can't fucking cry. She is a headache of yellow and blue, fingers too damn thin, and bruises the shape of fingerprints. Her name is green, she thinks. Maybe. She's not really sure of anything anymore except the yellow she craves with every inch of her bruised body and the blue too bright it scares her.

Lennon wraps her hand around Charlie's, steadying the empty tumbler as she pours in the amber liquid. And all Charlie can see are whisky colored eyes and blue, blue, blue. So she swallows the liquor, and then waits.

It's a steady pattern of familiarity. Fingers too thin wrapped around her drink. Swallowing the scream in her throat, the blue that scares her, the tears that won't fucking come. Swallowing the words that scratch her throat and the yellow she sees every damn time she closes her eyes. Swallowing the image of the blonde headed girl and a green eyed boy standing too close, touching, kissing, fucking.

She's not sure when she started taking swigs from the bottle. Lennon's saying words but her ears are ringing with a sandpaper voice, all the screams lodged in her throat, silence. Swallowing until the blue swirls into the yellow.

And her name is green, she thinks. Maybe. But she's not really sure anymore.

* * *

Zayn picks at the skin of his thumb with shaky hands, breathes slowly, and sits on the edge of the couch. He chews on the inside of his cheek and waits in the agonizing silence as Liam goes through the process of lining up his notes meticulously, pen clicked and ready. And Zayn's not sure where to look, eyes skirting over the plethora of diplomas hung on the wall, the bookshelf in the corner, the blank parking lot through the single window. He hears Charlie in his head laughing at him, telling him to "man the fuck up and look him in the eye already dammit" balls his fist and just does it. He feels his heartbeat in his ears, bites his bottom lip and fuck Liam's just staring at him. And he's so fucked up.