Tailored Hats, Cats and White Rabbits Original

Epilogue// Follow The White Rabbit

I'm alternating living at Dad's place and Michael's. His mother is regularly working and away so we have the house to ourselves usually. But we've never gone past heavy making out, teenagers all around the world have been disgraced. We sleep in his bed when I'm over and he sleeps in my room at my Dad's. Dad is usually working all hours of the night and day so I hardly see him through the week. But on weekends Dad takes me somewhere special, just the two of us and we talk. At first it was awkward conversation, we had not spoken since I was thirteen and now I was almost an adult. But once the ball got rolling we couldn't stop talking. Turns out I didn't know my father like I thought I knew when I was a kid. We had all of these adult conversations about our future with just the two of us. We ate ice cream and drank coffee up in the mountains. Walked on the beach and he kissed me on the head and told me how much he missed me and loved me.

Michael's mouth on my earlobe awakens me from my reminiscing. My mouth automatically moans out a strangled version of his name. His hand is crawling up my thigh, inflaming the skin underneath. How is it he knew exactly how to touch me? I feel his fingers trail down my tattooed arm and I feel a question coming on.
"When did you get these tats?" he asks lowly. The day was quite vivid in my memory bank.
"Right after Dad was chucked out of the house and I fell into depression. Sandra had been sick of me being difficult and...she had refused to feed me, if I continued on acting the way I was." Letting out a defeated laugh I remember how I had broken into her safe, taken the pearl necklace and made a beeline to the tattoo parlour on the edge of town.

"I paid for the tattoos with Sandra's pearls, the guy could see that I had stepped across the line in the sand but he told me that I could get whatever I wanted. I told him that every Alice in Wonderland tattoo he had on file I wanted" glancing up at the inked arm that was outstretched, the jumble of tailored hats, cats and white rabbits. All mixed with teacups, solitaire cards and potion bottles and even a dodo bird. However the day when I had that mental breakdown and Nurse Carrigan had to sedate me, the scars and cuts had mangled and cut up the images. I still had a few lingering raised scars that maybe would never really go away.
"I was thirteen"

Michael's breath was on my neck, right where the words 'Alice in Wonderland' were tattooed,
"It must have hurt" he whispered gently. I let out a long dragged out exhale, the needle and the ink as it sunk into my skin was unlike anything. I kept on telling myself while I sat there, that whenever Sandra or anyone who hated me or who didn't understand me could see the tattoos and realise that no matter what they did, I was always going to remain the way I was. No matter how much they made me hurt.

"It did. But it was a good pain" shifting slightly I felt a change of pace as Michael smiled against my skin.
"I like you in jeans" he stated gruffly, his lips making a fiery trail down my neck to the collar of my shirt. Talk about a switch of subject. For a fleeting moment I was angry that he hadn't sympathised with me but I think he didn't want to linger on a rather dark past. So I was thankful.
"If you love them so much" his fingers splayed my stomach, "then why do you intend on removing them?"

Michael recoiled and I'm thinking that maybe he doesn't like the fact that my stomach has carried the many chocolate cakes I've indulged in over the past few days. It's called a period boys, don't question the ridiculous food cravings.
"Is something wrong?" I turn around and face him as we both lay on the blanket. The tree branches rustle above us and the flashes of light that have made it through the leaves shiver over our bodies.
"No" he says and curls a piece of hair behind my ear, his hand cupping my cheek on the way back.
"I'm just not used to you talking like that" he looks almost disappointed.

"Is that why you don't ever touch me like you used to? Because I'm not Alice anymore?" I ask him and lean up on my elbows. He does the same and his green eyes will never cease to amaze me with their depth.
"No, Alisa, I love calling you that. I think I love you more now that I don't have to be careful around you. But..." he trails off but doesn't lose eye contact.
"But you're wondering if you know me at all" my American accent that I was born with is still something that sounds strange to me. For so long I've been used to the fake English accent I've been putting on for the sake of Alice's character. But now that I have relaxed and dressed like someone from the 21st century it's so new yet I feel comfortable.

I've kept all my dresses and I wear them all the time but now I've taken to putting my hair up and putting on skinny jeans. Michael has been appreciative of that. He takes a deep sigh,
"I need to get to know Alisa Wilders because for the past four months I've only ever known Alice. I don't know everything about you. But I'm willing to wait to find out"

He gives me a smile but it doesn't reach his eyes and there's something still bothering him.
"Alisa...why, just tell me why you did it? Why did you do it for so long? Why have you not ever opened up to anyone?"

I see an image before my eyes of Michael holding me while I broke down in tears, moonlight caressing my skin as he touched me so delicately. Those nights with no words only actions when we lie next to each other. I had to veer my glance away from him and I looked out over the stretch of green fields below the hill that we were on.
"I had come to the conclusion that reality might not even be real. When I felt like I was falling forever with no escape I discovered something." Clenching my jaw and then relaxing I waited for the possible ridicule I was going to experience.

"Anything can be anything if you want it to be. A father can be a smoking blue caterpillar, a mental institution can be a fictional land, a girl can be a lie to everyone and make them believe something that's not really there. We each have the capacity to shape the very fabric of not only our own reality but the people around us and their realities. It had been an idea at first, to see how society treated someone like me. I wanted to know what they would do, what they would say, how they would behave around me" at some point I've started crying but I need to continue, "I was so shocked at how fucked up society was that I stuck to it and became Alice. I became my own lie. And I'm sorry." My watery eyes drifted back up to Michael's. He was sitting so very still, surveying me under his long eyelashes.

"I'm sorry, so sorry that I have deceived you for so long. But the truth is you've changed my reality, Michael" I can hear his breath hitch, "The only illness that I have ever been inflicted with is loving you...because I love you so much I think I'm going mad" I'm a full blown crying mess now, knees curled up to my chest, sobbing into my hands. Maybe I expected Michael to comfort me like he has done so many times but he remains still and silent and it's starting to worry me. Have I said too much? Is he scared because I love him this hard?

"P-please say something" my voice is wet and cracked under the tears. Michael finally moves to sit behind me, his legs lining up with mine as I relax and lean against his chest.
"I love you as fiercely as a beating heart loves the blood on which it survives".

Sugar and spice melted against our tongues. Heat and stars collided in my belly. Blue and green jewels ablaze in flames and crowned in ice. Hot summer winds and dark earth spoke to each other, told us to remember the smell of fire and grass.
"Michael make love to me" I spoke in breaths as we panted into each other's skin and tangled didn't even begin to describe how we were.
"Now?" Michael smirked, his mouth on my collarbone. His knuckles caressing the interlocking sections of my spine, individually.

"Well I don't want to leave either of us high and dry" I started but Michael had plans of his own, riding my shirt up till my stomach was exposed to him, the underwire of my bra slightly showing. He bit down on both.
"But my Dad isn't going to be home till early tomorrow morning" I told him matter-of-factly as his hands spanned my behind. I was burning up with what was surely a fever by the incredible amount of heat I was emitting.
"Then let's go" Michael said, well more like groaned, as I tightened my thighs around him in anticipation.

***

Lips. There were mouths and then there were lips. Spice and sugar never failed to compete and yet both win. Sweat and rain. A burning inferno and a silky river. Silver moons served up on platters, eaten off our skin. Darkness gave us gifts, silence and secrecy. Materials of concealment were redundant and bare naked skin was beautiful. Salt and honey on skin. A tongue down my neck, a mouth on his. Drunk on the essence of exploding stars. Eternity passed and yet it was still the same night.

Wishbones were snapped and hope bound with promises. Until finally we lay in each other's arms under the scrutiny of the moon and the stars but their judgement was invalid. We were here and nothing was between us...that was all that mattered.

There was no mystical ideal or some mental issue that blocked the way ahead. It was plain and simple. Skin was against skin, everything laid out before us. All of our flaws, all of our lies, all our short comings and all of our promises. It was ugly and in its raw hideousness it was beautiful, because it was ours. Ours, forever and always and screw it if we liked it that way.

Because after all...we're all mad here.