Sometimes the things you learn are hard to unlearn. Sometimes they stick with you a lot longer than you would like. Autumn's got a few of those following on her heels. Read below for a tale from her seldom-discussed past! Old Habits There were six hundred and seventy-two and a third tiles on the cold bathroom floor. She had counted them at least ten times, going so far as to measure the partial piece with the trail of a finger, her print in the divot like the touch told her something sight could not. In the corner behind the tub was the one bit that hadn’t lined up properly and been cut short. It was still the same faded teal as the rest, surrounded by lines of cream with the ghostly bones of flowers pressed into the sealed glass. Daren had been too cheap to pay for marble, so he’d gone for something artistic and ostentatious to hide that fact. Marble was for fools who wasted their funds. Instead, he picked the minted blue as a backdrop and paid a half-starved architect to drizzle it with flowers and cover them with sealant. Whenever she came in during the day her heels had clicked against the exposed graves of posies. The tiles were cold. They were always cold. That was their one redeeming quality, in her opinion. She laid on her back, hair splayed in a halo so that the back of her skull absorbed the chill, the ceiling spinning above her in a waving pattern. She blinked, shooing the blur from her gaze so that the wood grain came back into sharp focus. Goosebumps pricked the skin of her arms and a shiver ran the length of her spine, bringing to her attention just how cold she’d gotten. How long had she been here? Minutes? Hours? It wasn’t where she was supposed to be. That was true on a lot of levels. The breath she took pressed her back against the unyielding tile, grounding her to a world she would not have minded drifting away from. Were it a normal evening, she would still be in the bedroom. Gritted teeth, clenched fists. Counting the beads of sweat against the back of her knees because it was the easiest thing to focus on. This was not a normal night, but this was still not where she was meant to be. There was a pack stuffed under the floorboards of the attic, full of all the shit she’d stolen over the last six months. Prepped before she rightly knew what purpose she would ever have for it. She should be dressing, grabbing that bag, and leaving. That had been the plan, but as she’d walked past the cracked door to the bathroom she’d paused, and before she knew it she’d laid down to let the cold seep through the silk and lace of her gown. Old habits died hard. Her whole life was an old habit. Tacks stuffed in the bottom of her heels to muffle the sounds, giving her more of a chance to walk through the house without notice. Checking them once or twice a day, just to make sure they were in. Wincing when she had to walk all the same. Dresses full of extra lace and fluff, abysmal to wear and look at but they came with extra padding. It wasn’t much but it helped. Rising at dawn to catch the single moment of peace if she was quiet. Slinking off to the bathroom in the late-night hours to let the tiles sooth the bruises. Wash, dry. The paler powders made her look sick but hid the violets and blues easier. She’d skipped that once or twice, or neglected a coat, and regretted it. He didn’t like it when other people could see what he’d done. Cook, clean. Perfection was impossible, but it must look like she had tried. Practice; always practice. Practice holding her breath, practice never making a sound, practice making herself small. Movement provoked, sound provoked; thoughts and feelings and expressions provoked. She was a doll, slack and still, hoping that all her habits would add up to make him reach for some other toy out of the toybox. “How could you do this to me?” His voice trembled around the constriction in his throat. The veins in his eyes looked like expanding rivers. They would drown them all. Should have picked a different toy. She pushed herself off the ground, sitting up and feeling the blood rush to different places beneath her skin. The rustle of her gown raced through her ears, cutting across the silence in a way that made her cringe. She waited, counting the seconds with too many heartbeats, but nothing happened. Nothing came. No stomp, no shout, no fist. Another rustle, another shift in the pattern of her world. Tracing the hem, the embroidery and beadwork rough beneath her touch, she reveled in way the edges of her consciousness started to crack. “What’s in this? It tastes different. I like it, though.” He tipped the cup back all the same, gleefully guzzling the last of the tea, his dinner plate already cleaned with naught but crumbs left on the rim. The tea was laced with something called ‘Midnight Tears’. It was supposed to taste faintly of grapes, though she hadn’t sampled it before adding it to everything in his meal – an extra dose in the tea. The grandfather clock on the wall ticked and tocked, the churning of the gears loud enough to her that it was pendulous thunder, swaying in rhythm with the minutes dripping by. Dripping like dark purple from the edge of an emptied bottle. It was fifteen till midnight. They said late dinners invited the ill favor of indigestion. Daren had never minded such advice when he spent late nights doing deals with unsavory merchants. She ripped the skirt. The shredding fabric was a peal of thunder, destroying not just the noiseless void in which she drifted, but the walls that held it in. She yanked harder, pulling the dress away and flinging it to the side. She threw her arms behind her back and picked apart the buttons, some of them popping off and clattering across the tiles. She disrobed, violently and under her own power, standing in the wreckage with a sense of…something. She couldn’t identify what it was, but it made the sides of her lips tilt in a grim smirk that didn’t look like hers in the mirror on the wall. She knelt down and pulled the tacks out of the heels, but left the shoes on her feet as she stalked out of the bathroom, naked and purposeful. The air in the hallway didn’t feel warmer than it had been on the bathroom floor, and her skin flushed with goosebumps as she carried herself towards the attic. She kept her head high, eyes straight, shoulders back. It was the tallest she had stood in years, and she stubbornly held the posture as her shoes cracked against the floor. Noisy, exposed, and proud. Proud of what she’d done. Proud enough to drown out the shame. The clock chimed, announcing the change of the hour, the transition between days born to the striking of a bell. Twelve peals marked evenly. The sound filtered through her skin, and she noted the way she trembled, like a sodden kitten. She clenched her fists, hiding them behind the folds of her skirts, counting the seconds. One…two…three…the chiming stopped, and she counted ten before he made a sound. It was choked. It was gargled. Like the air in his lungs had gotten caught on itself, stuffed behind the wall of a throat that had, without warning, grown too thin. He placed his hand on the table, fingers thick as they dug into the wood beneath the gilded cloth. His eyes were wide as they turned to her. “Autumn…get help.” He choked out the command, tears filling the edges of his gaze as he wheezed. She hated her name on his lips and wished she’d used something more volatile, something that could have kept him from using it this last time. She walked to the side of the table, pulling out a chair and sitting, carefully tucking her skirt out of the way. She had not been seated with him at the same time in ages, as he preferred her to serve as ambiance rather than companionship. He coughed, reaching across the table, but she had perched well out of his grasp. She was daring in this moment, but not stupid. Not stupid enough to blow it all. She hooked her finger around the handle of the teacup he had set aside, lifting it and tipping the cup so that a single drop idled over the edge, onto the white tablecloth. It stained it purple, the color of a fresh night sky minutes after gaining dominance over dusk. She smiled, wishing she’d worn something that matched the color. “Do you recall what you promised me, on our wedding day?” she set the cup down, freeing her hand to trace the edge of the purple stain. She didn’t look at her husband. She climbed the steps, pushing the door to the attic open with a fist. She wasn’t sure when she had started clenching her hands, but they felt too tightly wound to open again. She stalked over the uneven floorboards, making her way to the one she knew was loose. Dropping to her knees in front of it, she stuffed her fingers below it and pulled. It took effort to unwind her hands, more effort still to make them work at the task they’d been assigned. Eventually her hand and the wood obeyed, and the floor popped upward with a sharp creak that she ignored. She used her other hand to reach into the dark space and pull out her bag. Inside it was everything that she needed. Everything she needed now that she was free. “What?” The question was barely a sound, barely audible around the purple wheeze rattling through his chest. His lips were covered in spittle that he didn’t have the presence of mind to wipe away. It was the color of winter lavender. “On our wedding day. When I had come to you and confided to you the fears I had about my father. When I told you how grateful I was for a chance to escape his hand. What did you tell me?” He swept his hand across the table, sending the cutlery and tableware scattering across the room. She was prepared for that and didn’t move. Not an inch, not even a shudder at the sudden noise. She would give no quarter in this moment, would not give him the satisfaction. He’d seen her flinch enough. “You told me that for so long as you should live I would be yours.” She answered the question for him, recalling the sincerity the statement had held. Oh, how she had believed he would be her saving grace. She had worn her pretty white dress and pranced down the aisle, holding all the hope in the world in her heart. Here was a man who would be good. Here was a man who would take her away from the pain that lingered in the halls of her childhood. The wolf had worn a savior’s clothing. “I no longer wish to be yours.” She finished, letting the words ring through the air, heavy and full of import. He was stupid, but she knew he would understand. The aching squeeze in his chest would reinforce her meaning so that even he couldn’t miss it. Daren gurgled again, looking at her with betrayal shining from his eyes, a lighthouse guiding her towards the shores of regret. He looked…genuinely upset. Far more than she would have anticipated. His heart broke in his gaze, and he reached for her across the distance of the table, the distance of her fear, over the shards of shattered safety that wound across her soul like barbed wire. She dressed in the clothes she had stolen over the course of three months, pilfering something new each time she had been in town. Simple leather, dark and ill-fitting, the colors mismatched but all themed for night travel. She would find something that was more cohesive and better tailored another time. She would have time, she assumed. That was what people had when they did not dedicate every waking moment to avoiding the monster stalking the halls of their house. No, the style and fit didn’t concern her tonight. What was important now was that she was covered, that she was warm, and that she was traveling lightly to aid in expediency. She saved the heels for last, kicking them off with some reluctance. Part of her wanted to keep them, a small souvenir to remind her that silence was no longer necessary. That she could make noise when she wished. That she had earned her freedom to do so, even if the act of it still struck fear in her heart. Or perhaps she wanted a souvenir to remind her of everything it had cost her to gain that freedom. “How could you do this to me?” His voice trembled around the constriction in his throat. The veins in his eyes looked like expanding rivers. They would drown them all. He had no right to ask her that, to look at her as though she had broken his heart. He had no right to have a heart, not underneath all that anger. Not underneath all that violence. She had promised herself there was no person within the vessel that broke her, day after day. That no shred of humanity could reside in someone who could do what he did to another person. He used words of love and belonging, he paid lip service to devotion, but it was empty. It was lies. What kind of man loved like that? “How could I do this to you?” she parroted the question, her surprise bleeding like the purple cloud blotting the tablecloth. “What about what you did to me?!” She wrapped herself in anger and indignation, letting it coil like a snake that she could use to bite when needed. Oh, how it was needed. “Your cruelty, your fury, your disgusting demands…all directed at me, for years. What I do to you does not even begin to make amends.” Beneath the pain of his gasps and crumbling lungs, he had the unexpected decency to look sorry. To look as though he was losing not just his life, but his world. That her hand in his demise brought him more pain than the slowing of his pulse. He was painted with regret, the guilty hue breaking through the blistering red of his airless face. He swallowed, the motion thick and tense as the muscles worked along his throat. “I’m…sorry. You are…too much. No one will…ever…treat you better…but it’s not…what you deserve.” His fingers stopped gripping the table, the cloth falling flat beneath his palms. He held her gaze, blue eyes full of an apology he had never voiced before, had never even hinted might exist. Within him a sudden depth opened, and there was a person seated before her, imparting sorrow that was the most honest thing he’d ever shown. Then he slumped forward, the life eking away from him, leaving her with a stuttered prophecy that struck her with more fear than she cared to admit. He was gone. He was dead. She was…free? She was a murderer. A flurry of moths battered the outside of the lantern hanging beside the front door. Their wings slapped together loudly as they tried to reach the flame that would incinerate the fuzz along their bodies. Always yearning for their own demise, desperate for it to the point that they might spend their entire existence slamming their head against a glass wall. There was a metaphor there, some interesting comparison to the ties that people held between each other, but she was too tired to piece it together. Was she the moth, or the glass? And would it matter when they all fell into the fire? She hefted the pack over her shoulder and cinched the straps tighter, keeping it close enough that it wouldn’t bounce as she walked. It made her soundless, like a shadow, and as she slipped into the darkness she found it suited her. She’d fought for sound but couldn’t bring herself to embrace it. Perhaps that was all she was: a silent shadow. The absence of light, a smudge of murky nothing that was left behind by something else. She glanced at her hands, and in the night they seemed stained with purple. She imagined it was the poison seeping through her pores, evidence of what she had become as the clock had tolled for her husband. Ex-husband. Maybe she would have midnight hands for all her life, to match the midnight crimes she had committed. What had she become? She was a pile of collected pain, woven into the shape of a person whose edges were too sharp and too many. She didn’t know what that made her, didn’t know what kind of person she was beneath the old habits and the little actions she took day to day for her survival. She didn’t understand what it was to exist without doing any of that. What would she be beyond this night? She was a murderer. She was a heartbreaker. She was a shadow stealing away from the scene of her misdeeds. She mourned his death as she fled, hating herself for it. She mourned the death of something inside herself, as well. She had lost something, and though she couldn’t put a name to it and couldn’t recall the shape of it, she knew well that it was gone. Perhaps it had died long ago, and she hadn’t noticed. She was sure, though, that now she belonged to this good night which she had claimed for herself, taking it with the stilling of a blackened heart. She belonged in the darkness that she disappeared into, finding her path around the tears in her eyes. She was silent as she fled. As silent as she had always worked to be for the past few years. As silent as a doll, cracked porcelain laid to gather dust along a shelf. She was silent even though she was sure she need not be. She was silent out of habit, because there was safety in that, reassurance in the repetition. Old habits died hard. Written by Zom
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