Seventeen

𝖔. A canvas is a curse

        
Do you die before you break?

        Her death was a familiar lover, a candy-coated fragment of nostalgia that lingers around her mind like one person in an empty asylum. For Solaris, demise and romance came in hand-in-hand, prepared to clutch her so tight that her corrupted breaths faltered and failed. There's a hazy feeling to it, pills and red wine stained her cheeks with a pale ivory colour and as the seconds go by, her body turned purple. She was running out of air, and she danced on its high. She couldn't think anymore, and she basked in the peace of a thoughtless mind. She spun on every counter, sung on every crevice of the broken balcony— Isabelle never dared ask if Solaris was okay. She was always afraid of the answer, so she never bothered.

'Go to bed, Sol.'

  'I'll be in a great, eternal slumber.' She's always been a poet. 'Goodnight, Belle.'

       Her bones grew stiff and there was a certain glow in her sight, she was seconds away from her quietus self-murder. One foot forward, the other one back, ballroom dancing on the edge. Three struts left before she falls, and falls and falls and hits the ground with a heavy thud and a final smile.

        Her il babbo caught her arm a step away. She turned her head quick, and she falls onto the floor with his grip still heavy on its rounded hand: the cold Solaris falls upon his tongue. Mouth fell agape at its first syllable, his teeth grinding at the 'S', tongue reaching the roof of his mouth— Solaris, sun, bright but deadly.

       "What are you up to?"

        "What does it seem like?"

         "Are you not afraid of death?"

         "I'm more afraid of living, papa."

          James was as discontented as he always was when it came to Solaris. Isabella was always first pick, on pointed toes, dolly-eyed dreamer who dances on big ballroom floors and embroiders cloth to cloth, smile to mouth. His angel. Solaris had tried to live up to Isabelle, from her dancing to her origami, but it never truly stayed with her. Solaris was anything but idle, archery in the morning, fencing on the weekends, painting on the sad days and poetry nearly every night to bed. All of it was discouraged, which made her want to do it more, of course— but instead of seeing her as Isabella's opposite, she was more of a minx.

        "Do not say such things, Solaris."

    Her laugh sounded like broken piano keys, drunk and uneasy on her feet: he furrowed his eyebrows and told her it's dangerous to be doing what she was up to, she rolled her eyes and told him that's the point. He couldn't bring himself to add even the tiniest bit more of concern to his words; he was tired. Of her suicide notes, her sobbing in secrecy, her rebellion— her. Solaris was never easy. She liked it too much when she went against them, her parents ignored it and continued to clap for Isabella. She stopped trying then. They've always told her she wasn't good at anything, and when she was 12, 13, 14, 15— she believed them— 16, 17— she didn't care anymore. Every day was her funeral service, Solaris finally realised survival was not only a routine, but a talent. Something better than Isabella had ever done. No craft, spell or dance can be greater than living through life with Solaris' mind.

       She let go of his arm, pulled it back quick and fell on her knees. It was like a plea, a sorry, something her father had wished she'd do: to be sat on her knees begging for his forgiveness and his love, but she crawled away, and stood back up with a hazy smile. Her vision clouded, like gossamer coating her blue irises with its ivory strings. . . It was almost peaceful. She couldn't hear her thoughts, she could no longer think. It was nirvana, a paradise where she didn't have to live with herself. Even for just a moment. She felt happy, nothing, funny. It was a tornado of every feeling at every stage and she was spinning in its eye. Her Papa told her to sit down, to drink water or let herself fall into a deep slumber— she told him the same thing she told Isabelle.

"I'll be in a great, eternal slumber, Papa." She smiled, it was sick— she knew it was, but she couldn't bring herself to care any longer. She was seventeen seconds away from being whisked into his spell, she walked further away and spun around before she saw him pull his wand out and murmur a small incantation. A small 'huh?' was emitted from her mouth, turning around with his spell hitting every corner of her body, it almost felt like crucio, but that wasn't nearly as painful as overdosing and spinning under your father's relentless dark magic. She screamed, wailed and shook, papa, no! Solaris stilled, she nearly thought it was over, she tried to spin again to ask what was it he put on her, but she could no longer move. Solaris had been put in a painting. In her painting.

Her death was a familiar lover, a candy-coated fragment of nostalgia that lingers around her mind like one person in an empty asylum.