─── ❀ ───
When darkness prances in the presence of its foe, it mimics itself in the like of a shattered looking glass imbued with twilight ichor — a sublime calamity that, even in its fragmented condition, still reflects the pulchritude of an archangel. Even though it presents itself as damaged goods, beauty is within the eye of the beholder, and nothing screams beauty quite as deafening as the lullaby of an adolescent tragedy.
Gaia Arbore was merely an admirer of abstract art.
Her whole life, she had been the girl that found herself drifting off into the cosmos by the tendrils of her psyche, disassociating from the world that encompassed her and observing everything from the sealed eyes of an aesthete. Minutes turned to hours in which she lay glued to cotton sheets and knitted quilts, her eyelids displaying an elaborate play where actors chorused hymns of blissful reverie.
Somedays, she would find herself sitting near the windowsill of her childhood casa, feeling the splintered wood press into her forearms as she cherished the few minutes of spilled sunrise, watching the street of Roma come to life once again.
Every now and then, she would see a man and woman walking hand in hand, whispering sweet nothings into each others' ears until they ran away, tripping on cracked stone and cigarette-infused air. She had always wondered what it was like; to have someone to whisper sweet nothings to and visit every spot in the city until their feet caved under their adrenaline-filled bodies.
And now here she was, walking in the same streets she had admired from afar from her bedroom window, but instead, she strode in pace with a mysterious British man who was to be her new roommate.
Gaia would have been a liar if she claimed to have not been extremely nervous about the arrangement she had signed up for. Her top teeth continuously gnawed at the chapped skin of her soft bottom lip, tearing away dead flesh through her anxiousness.
She felt intimidated by his presence, for he strode through the streets as if it were the red sea, influencing the bustling sidewalk traffic with each planted step of his obsidian-wrapped oxfords. In his right hand, Tom held a leather briefcase whose stitching was beginning to fray, and the material had begun to scratch to a beige.
Turning her head away from Tom, Gaia noticed her blurry reflection in a shop window. When she took in her current appearance, a light gasp passed her torn lips that were a subtle carmine due to her chewing. Her wavy hair was disheveled on top of her head, strands reaching out towards the roseate painted sky that grew clementine clouds from the branches of stars that had just begun to peak over the paradisiacal canopy.
Almost instantly, she began to brush at the knots, pulling downward harshly in an attempt to defrizz the jungle of her sable locks. Her hair had always been a burden in her life, for it was always too thick to manage and never stayed in place. During the summertime, Gaia's hair situation would always get worse, forcing her to pin up her hair in tight buns that yanked at her scalp until it bruised.
"Stai bene?" A deep and rich voice questioned. Tom quirked an eyebrow at Gaia, curious as to what she was doing as they walked.
The act of impersonating sincere concern brought bile up his throat, for even Lucifer gets sick of putting up a foreign front every once and a while. But Tom knew what he needed to say, what he had to do, so if the script said to be kind, then he would put on the best damn show Roma had ever seen.
"Si, si. I miei capelli soon pazzi, that is all." Gaia ran one last hand through her waves, flattening it down on the outside. He cast a look at her unruly hair, nose twitching slightly at how chaotic it looked. "Anyways," she cleared her throat, "I must inform you about my current living situation."
Tom nodded his head, urging her to continue.
"La mia casa è molto piccola, so I apologize if there is barely any room to move around. You will get your own bedroom though, so I supposed there is a bright side." Gaia had not thought of the house she was inviting him to stay in, and she felt a bit ashamed for having so little space to roam around.
Tom let out a loose chuckle which caused Gaia to tense up, "That is perfectly fine, Gaia. It is much better than sleeping on the side of the road after all."
"I suppose it is." She let out a heavy exhale, shoulders relaxing against the push of gravity.
Gaia never considered herself to be an ungrateful girl; she was the exact opposite. Though, there were always times in her life when the topic of money slithered its way into her conversations — venom indignity injecting through acuate fangs by the walls of her abdomen.
She grew up in a humble household where fresh fruit was a privilege, and the radiator seemed to break down every other week. Her mamma would soothe her worries by saying, "Do not worry, bambina, when your papà returns, he will fix it."
The radiator stayed broken.
Though it was not because of her papà's unfaithfulness to his wife, but rather for his untimely death in October of 1940 due to his role as an aircraft pilot. For months, Gaia had written splotchy letters with her dried-out ink pens, sending them to her papà until she was positive he could fill up two duffle bags.
But, her letters remained unanswered, and she was later glad they stayed that way. For when she learned about her papà's support of their fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, and his cause, the mere idea of conversing with her papà drove a skewer through her heart.
It was comical how the ones you trust the most can betray you.
Gaia now lived in an apartamento that was a modest place, but certainly not the best. Her windows faced a dingy courtyard that had not been tended to in a few years. Weeds sprouted from cracked cobblestone, and busted drainpipes dripped droplets of polluted rainfall onto mounds of saturated dirt. Every once and a while, the echo of a scavaging animal would resound through the yard, the scuttle of small paw steps pattering against the swamped stone.
Gaia hoped one day that she would be able to afford a house that faced the city.
"This apartamento is beautiful. Go look out the window for what the view looks like, bambina." Her mamma had said.
"Oh, it is an interesting view that is for certain."
"I am sure it is not that bad." The older woman walked towards the window, "I stand corrected."
The pair continued their walk — the heavens teasing a midnights kiss while tenderly stroking Monet's languid sky in Van Gogh's Starry Night.
Though she walked with the awareness of fauna's prey, her mind rippled through the great lakes of her mind — every thought as clear as fresh sap when it at its smallest, but as opaque as hardened amber when at its grandest. She skipped rocks over and over again with the stones of her rumination, analyzing the man across the pond who was made of blurred lines and crystal stanzas.
"Excuse me if this sounds unkind," Gaia started, escaping her wondrous mind, " but how come you dress so nicely yet cannot afford a decent hotel?" She tilted her heart-shaped face to the side, brushing a loose strand of hair out of the way.
Tom pondered over his answer for a few seconds, choosing his words wisely. He scanned over tools in golden buckets, debating which cunning weapon would be suited for this situation. "Last year, I lost my father to an undiagnosed illness," Tom's face wilted like fading jasmine, a faux ring of morning dew filling at his ebony pistils in what looked to be a sign of life (lies), "This outfit was one of his."
Gaia's heart seemed to have stopped its continuous beat in her lively chest, for the usual rapping at her ribcage came to a sudden halt. "Mi dispiace for your loss, Tom. I hope I did not offend you. May he live evermore in heaven with our Lord." She placed a delicate hand onto his shoulder, feeling the way his body twitched slightly at their contact. Her hand burned under the touch — an angel caressing deviled horns.
Tom's eye widened slightly at her words and touch, but mostly at her words. If only she knew how much his father had deserved his gruesome fate. He had left his child to be stuck in an orphanage because the child's pathetic mother died of an even more pathetic broken heart.
Pathetic
His father was not in heaven, nor would he even get a chance to sneak a glance at the glorious golden gates. He was in perdition being tortured by hell's inferno — skin blistering under the sanguine flames of every tortured souls' last drop of blood. It was a figment that kept Tom asleep at night — the devil's sweetest dreams.
"No, no, you did not offend me. Your worries are completely understandable. I would be questioning my claims as well, for it does seem a bit weird." He quirked a (chipped) grin.
"Oh, please do not take my paranoia for mistrust, Tom. Just, as a woman, I must be careful."
"Of course, I will do everything in my power to allow you to feel safe with me, Gaia. I have no intention of harming you." Yet.
Gaia's lips threatened to pull into a small grin, and ultimately her muscles defied her. "Grazie, Tom." She dragged her attention away from him, looking into the distance to spot the familiar wooden door that would lead them to her apartamento. "We are here."
❀
Lemons, flowers, and fresh herbs; that was the first scent that coated their sinuses.
The decoration of Gaia's apartamento matched the aroma of the room, for the walls were painted a subtle dandelion that chipped petal pigments on the scratched hardwood flooring. La stanza was adorned with shiny faux-leather couches that held milky white pillows with stitched floral designs atop of them. Under the wooden center table was a garnet carpet with intricate designs weaved in with the cheap material.
Gaia breathed in the refreshing resonance, for she had smelled the scent of unfiltered tobacco for so long to the point where tears tickled at her waterline. Even though her apartamento was comfortable and inexpensive, the young woman took care of it the best she could. Dust barely ever brushed the furniture or flooring, and she made sure that it would stay that way.
When Tom took in his surroundings, he was surprisingly pleased. The way Gaia had spoken about her home gave him the impression that she was sleeping in a shoebox. Her apartamento was filled to the brim with vibrant and muted colors — a pleasant balance between the two contrasting color combinations.
However, the odor of squeezed lemons attacked him, knocking at the deepest part of his mind, otherwise known as his memories of Wool's Orphanage. The rancid lemon scent reminded him of the toxic cleaner that the staff would make the children use to scrub the floors until their eyes watered like spring flowers and their fragile flesh burned to a crimson due to the harmful chemicals. It was a part of his past that he had made sure to push to the deepest part of his busy mind. But, due to Gaia's home, the memory was unearthed with tarnished metal shovels from the sinful soil of his psyche; it was a grave digger's avaricious desires.
Twisting his head slowly from left to right, scanning the room, Tom took notice of the excessive amount of potted white lilies that scattered in ceramic pots around the tiny apartamento. Some had already begun to whither, bending at the stem while their departed petals sunk to the floor like swan feathers.
"Benvenuti a mi casa," Gaia spun around in a circle, gesturing towards the four corners of her home.
"You have a lovely home," Tom replied, coffee eyes still studying his surroundings with curiosity, "Though I must ask: why so many white lilies?"
"They were my mamma's favorite," Gaia said, walking towards one of the pots that sat near the fogged window. The sky had now completely dimmed to early dusk, scintillating stars flickering against the obscure veil of nighttime. "Sadly, she passed away this year because of a heart attack." Saltine tears threatened to escape her eyes, "But, it is okay now. I have grieved, and I have mourned, so it is time to honor her memory."
"I am so very sorry for your loss, Gaia."
How ingenuine.
Gaia nodded a 'thank you,' before clearing the lump in her throat through a hearty cough, "Enough about me, let me show you to your bedroom."
The young woman gestured for Tom to follow her through a narrow corridor that had an olive green carpet draped down the length of the hallway. Hung on the wall were impressionism paintings held behind clear glass frames. Light fixtures similar to the ones in the bar dangled from the white textured ceiling, illuminating the space with a golden hue.
When they arrived at the end of the short hallway, Gaia opened the door for Tom to enter.
"This is where you shall be staying for the time being," Gaia began, "Over here is your bed, wardrobe, and study desk." She pointed to the few furniture items around the room that were all made of the same polished dark wood, "I hope this is decent space for you."
Unlike the rest of the house, Tom's bedroom was painted a soft beige that was easier on the eyes compared to the bold yellow of the main quarters. The pane glass windows were set behind translucent ivory curtains that brushed near the floor, blowing ever so slightly from the breeze flowing through the small crack where the window was cracked open. To his 'luck,' Gaia had placed yet another vase containing white lilies on his nightstand next to a silver alarm clock.
"Yes, it is perfect, grazie." Tom threw his small briefcase onto the bed, indenting the perfectly pressed cotton sheets, causing them to wrinkle. "Could you by any chance point me to the bathroom?" He asked.
"Of course, follow me," Gaia headed out of the room and pointed to the door to the left of his, "Right here. And if you ever need me, my bedroom is across the hall." She sent him a warm smile that crinkled the ends of her eyes softly, though he returned it with a closed-lip grin.
Tom thanked her once more before entering the bathroom and closing the door lightly. As he did so, Gaia let out a huge sigh, touching the back of her warm hands to her forehead to feel the heat radiating off of her textured skin. The young woman made her way into her bedroom, the sound of running tap water fading as she closed her door, locking it.
She slid into her nightgown, feeling the way the polyester and cotton rubbed against her body as if she was caressing the velvety coat of a white rabbit. Gaia grabbed a fresh towel that sat on her dresser, cleaning her face by rubbing at her delicate, olive skin until it flushed a sweet rose. Picking up her wooden brush, she pulled down on her knotted locks.
Her bedroom was still, and the circling air was heavy with summer's exiled breath. Pale moonlight entwined through speckled drafts, casting luminescent beams to dance on the floor through aerial particles. The room now smelled of botanic oblivion carried by the honeybees of doomed sentiments of those who were a bit too giving.
Gaia breathed in the aroma, gliding towards her vanity.
Her reflection stared back at her through the silver mirror, allowing her to truly take in her appearance for the first time that day — not through fogged store windows or bitter, rippling coffee; it was just her in all her hues and beauty.
She noticed her pearled scars, her rough imperfections, and soft edges. She noticed the way her shoulders naturally tilted a bit too far down left, and she noticed her deep undereye bags that begged for slumber through sunken lilacs. She noticed how her face lacked ethereal symmetry yet showcased the authenticity of difference.
She noticed her fallibility.
Though, she smiled at herself all the same.
Because Gaia was an enchanting looking glass — pristine, divine
and destined to shatter
if she allowed it.
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A/N: Hi! I hope you enjoyed chapter tre! Make sure to vote and comment :)
Oh, and I hate writing dialogue.