Coming Undone

tw: blood, language, self harm (kinda?)

Beneath my collar, the skin is red and raw, the deepening scratches burning with absence. Halter necks, collars with buttons at the hollow of my throat, or piles of laces that frill across my skin or hike up to my jaw—these have been my uniform for the last few weeks.

When I'm home, I swap these exorbitant veils for the comfort of a faded pink crewneck sweatshirt. Age has loosened the collar. Not noose-tight, but it's tight enough. The sleeves are unraveling at the end: I can hook my thumbs through the threadbare cuffs, in holes that weren't there a few months ago.

When sleep creeps to the edge of my mind (and in these months when it's dark before I'm even home, it's always a lingering, desperate plea in my ear) I shed my layers. Standing before the floor-length mirror in my dimly lit room, bare and shivering, I allow myself the intoxicating torture of looking upon the steadily growing rash. Reverently, I brush the tips of my fingers over the four red scratches cut diagonally across my sternum. Deeper than they were last night. Beading with fresh blood.

Sharing my gaze between the furious slashes and the haunting emptiness of my reflection, I dig my fingertips into the gashes. A throbbing pulse beats beneath my nails. My claws. Each deliberate drag across the gaping wounds ignites a cocktail of sensations; fiery and prodding, dull and aching.  

Time is suspended in these moments, where I meet the harrowed gaze of the woman in the mirror, both of us trapped in this pallid body, caught between dread and reckless curiosity. It's only Her and me and the thrilling tumult of desperation. Tears glisten in Her pale green eyes. I feel the unwelcome sting behind my own.

My claws. They dig and dig, searching for a blue stone wrapped in copper wire, but find only warm, slick blood. Warm. At least it's warm.

The front door creaks open, clicks shut.

"Winnie?"

It's Lucas. He's been working overtime recently, promising to pull us above water. We still have a roof over our heads. I can't eat much recently anyway. So. Our debts are diminishing. We're drowning slower. It will be worth it. He will be worth this.

Crimson pools in my palms. Soaks into the crusted rag I keep hidden in the back of my closet, behind the ratty period underwear and paint-splattered overalls. No traces. No more ruined clothes.

Keeping my gaze trained on the woman in the mirror, I pull my nightdress over my head. Silk settles against my skin, a cool, featherlight kiss. The collar of this, too, is haltered. Choking. Hiding the still-bleeding cuts beneath. One more time, I press the rag to my chest until the muscles of my forearm are screaming. The bleeding has slowed. Stopped.

"Winter?" Lucas calls again.

Somewhere deep inside my heart flutters. Sputters. Resumes a steady, monotonous beat. The woman in the mirror frowns. I blink.

Now We're hastily throwing the bloody rag to the back of the closet and We're not crying and We're not clutching at something that's no longer there.

Vetiver overwhelms my nose. A moment later, Lucas rounds the corner into our bedroom. I don't know how his cologne is so resilient, masking the scent of grease and oil. Maybe it's just part of his magic, that he can come home smelling like Eden after slaving away in a less than reputable restaurant. But damn if he isn't working himself to the bone to improve that reputation.

He wraps his strong arms around my waist, settling his chin into the crook of my neck. His rough beard tickles my skin. I meet his soft gaze in the mirror. Lucas' eyes have always been a little sad, carrying the weight of his mistakes in the stormy blue of his irises. Sometimes too morose or too full of rage. Not palatable for some. But they don't understand.

You didn't understand.

Lucas kisses the side of my head. The woman staring back in the mirror is only me. Strangely, I feel a sense of loss. Every night, I lament Her leaving. Retreating to the recesses of my mind where I can't reach Her.

I lean back into Lucas. Tranquility drapes over me. When he's near, the voices in my head, the reflection of me I mourn, they're all quiet. His scent, his presence, is a home unlike any other. A smile tugs at my lips and I feel like a puppet. I want to feel this smile, the wash of gentle joy without being overshadowed by the cold prickling darkness in my mind. But everything has been tainted since that fucking stone went missing.

Lucas trails his fingers down my arms. Goosebumps raise my flesh.

His warm breath ghosts over the shell of my ear.

"Winnie, my love." His searching hands tug at the hem of my nightdress.

"Lucas," I whisper back, my tone sultry. He's hard against my backside. I find my smile growing more genuine as a pleasurable tingling arises between my legs. Our eyes remain locked in the mirror. I reach up, taking a fistful of his thick curling hair. These intimate moments are almost comparable to the brief moments alone with my reflection when I toe the blurring line between control and self-destruction.

Lucas runs his fingers over my breasts. I'm so lost in my desperate, raging desire I can't stop myself from flinching at the stab of pain when he caresses my collarbone. His eyebrows furrow. I recover quickly, guiding his rough fingers up to wrap around my throat. He doesn't know about the cavernous grooves engraved in my skin. The itch I feel in the absence of that goddamn blue rock.

The itch. Fuck.

I tear my gaze from the mirror, turning around to press my mouth to his. Lose myself in the sensation of desire. Desire and desperation are intoxicants. Better together. So fucking mind-numbing it's addictive.

I know he must be tired, bone-weary, starving. But he does this for me, kisses me hard and passionately, pins me to the bed, brings me to the brink of madness with the pleasure roiling through me. He does this for me. He does everything for me. Anything.

You never saw that. You refused to see how happy he makes me. Deep in my bones, beneath the waves of desire and numbness, something ancient and unfamiliar flickers, hot and voracious.

"Winter!" Lucas screams my name into my hair as he comes undone inside me. I pepper his sweaty face with kisses. He laughs. He's so warm. I wrap my arms tight around him, holding him to me, as if I could make him one with me. He's so warm.

He disentangles himself from my embrace, parting with a long, deep kiss. I lay there in my night dress, while he showers and readies for bed, staring at the ceiling, familiarizing myself with that ravenous feeling I've buried. Subdued, since I met you.

Sleep isn't whispering to me anymore. It's another entity entirely.

I rise to its call at the same time that Lucas crashes into the pillows, murmuring goodnight. For an interminable moment, I stand at the foot of the bed, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, listening to the familiar rumble of his snores. That rage—that's what it is, I know that now—it coils tight around my rapidly beating heart, setting my nerves alight.

He is abrasive and broken and hard to understand but he is charming and sweet and loyal and he is mine.

My fingers curl into fists.

You were mine. And that godforsaken stone was mine.

I hate the past tense.

It's so...absolute. Absolutes are not my specialty. Unraveling those stubborn matters of fact, creating openings no matter how small or impractical: that's where I flourish. That's how I will fix this—this clawing yearning in my heart, digging into my sternum.

Hands full, I step into our small backyard. Snow flutters around me, the flakes a stark contrast as they settle in my dark hair. It is thick and freezing beneath my bare feet. I welcome the pain. Suffering is the deepest modality of magic. The most raw and vulnerable. Most powerful.

I place the myriad of objects at the foot of a ring of stones. Inside the ring, chopped firewood is soaked with glistening snow. And yet, it still sparks to life, needing only a match and the flame of my inundating rage. I don't like being angry. It's not something I'm accustomed to. This magic is itching and writhing: it doesn't belong to me.

Clenching my jaw, I coax the flames higher.

I am patient. I am kind. I am self-loathing and terrified. I am loved. I am so fucking angry.

Warmed by the crackle of the hungry fire, I arrange the sticks of palo santo, each point facing a cardinal direction. I sprinkle salt around it, the curving lines creating the shape of a symbol I haven't used in a long time. My stomach knots. I press on, placing petals and stones and candles in their designated spots.

Snapping breezes shake snow from the trees, sweep away my pluming breath. The fire is impatient and hungry, in a stalemate with the howling wind. An undercurrent of power hums in my ears, drowning out my vigorous pulse. A door opening. A choice unmaking.

I can picture the wire-wrapped stone. The necklace you gave me. Worn pale blue because I couldn't stop seeking comfort in it. I picture it in so many memories I carry with me. You were with me every day.

It broke, fell to the floor. I wasn't sure how or when, only that I was dizzy with nausea and didn't realize until it was too late. And you were gone the same moment. Your voice, your smile, your presence—vanished into thin air. Like you never were.

Pulsing with power, I balance a tarot card in the center of the swooping symbol. A beautiful card, full of chaos and color. A tower collapsing.

That charm, that fucking blue stone that used to hang around my neck—where there are now welting red lines—warm against my skin, channeling my long ignored fear and doubt and malice into comfort and clarity and peace. I have been trying to claw that peace back into existence, to replace what was lost. But I have only been digging the venom out.

All I asked was some peace for Lucas, for me, for us.

He's not the one you should have been afraid of.

I scream as the fire grows taller than me, taller than our house, reaching for the stars. A rift cracks in the ether. Calling the stone back. Whether it wants to or not.

I am patient and kind and bursting at the seams with love. I am fraying. I am cracking. Wickedness is bleeding out.

You held me together. And now you've destroyed me.

The fire douses in an instant. Smoke curls into the encompassing dark. The front of my nightdress is soaked with blood and snow. I heave a choking, nauseating, soul-wrenching sob.

It didn't work.

It didn't work because I tried to do it all for you. But it's Lucas, now. He's the one that matters. The only one who has ever truly mattered.

My magic is twisted. My blue charm is gone.

The tears flow freer, freezing to my cheeks.

I am haunted by your absence, consumed by the way you’ve carved yourself into my soul—four open wounds across my chest that will never close.

And now, I am nothing but the hollow echo of what I was—emptied and torn open, the jagged remnants of you still burning within me. The gashes bleed not blood, but rage, bitterness, and a grief too deep to drown.

I wear your betrayal like a brand, and the fire of it will burn through me until there is nothing left but ash and a bitter, sour soul.

He is not the one you should have been afraid of. Who you should have hated.

With a gasp, I command the guttural sobs to silence. Turning my head to the sky, I breathe deeply, allowing myself to feel your absence and what it has wrought inside of me. Allowing Her to feel. To taste control. To share control.

She is awake.

And She is hungry.

I smile wickedly.

I am.