I'm drowning,

and your standing three feet away

screaming "learn how to swim."

-cj

March 10th:

She glares into the mirror, shattered around the edges like her demeanor. Mara feels strange, staring into her cerulean eyes emphasized by the eyeliner and eyeshadow of her mother's choosing. Her cheeks are dusted rose, taking away the sharpness of her character. Leveling her down to a naive looking girl.

Her vine-like scars, coiling around her wrists, are hidden by the silky sleeves of her thin cardigan, worn over the dress her mother insisted she wears. Mind that its winter and below-freezing temperatures, Mara sneers at the girl in the reflection of the mirror.

This is Emanuella, the girl Mara tries to discard like a piece of dirty laundry. She is buried in the dark corners of her personality, itching to be danced with by a man in a tailored tux and a wealthy hunch.

Emanuella is the girl Mara was raised to. The girl she could never seem to get proper, a piece of herself that never fit into the ideal picture of perfection. Mara prefers the dirt of life, whereas Emanuella is the type to step on anything lower than her elite kind.

Mara doesn't fit into the society of people who fake happiness and go home to empty households decked with gold and silver. She feels that friendships are meant to be more than business transactions, and she would much rather find love on her own accord.

Three knocks against the wooden door bring Mara back to reality as she looks away from her unrecognizable reflection. Boring holes into the surface, she wills herself to lock it. Sadly, it swings open with a sharp blast of wind. There stands her sister in the doorway, her brown hair tumbling into waves around her narrow shoulders.

"Jeez. For a minute can something not be about you. This is my party, and I will not have you ruining it with your complaining," Darla scoffs, rolling her eyes in distaste. 

Mara, in every sense, is the black sheep of the family. With her honey blonde hair and blazing blue eyes, she never had a chance of fitting in since the day she was born.

"Ah, but you can ruin it all on your own, dear sister. Especially with those split ends I can see from here. And you look a little peckish, paler than normal. Are you sick?" Mara drawls in her vibrant posh accent. She watches in amusement as her sister clutches the ends of her hair, bringing them close to her face as she glowers.

Mara strolls past, purposefully brushing her shoulder against Darla, who only glares harder. She makes sure to sway her hips, accentuating them as she sashays down the long stretching hallway. Heading in the direction of voices mingling together into what is supposed to be a party celebrating Darla's engagement. 

"Emanuella where's your sister? The guests are expecting her appearance." A hand lands on her shoulder, squeezing her shoulder blade in a trivial warning. Mara spins, to find her mother's eyes darting all around the room in search of her sister. She suppresses the laughter burning her throat, masking her amusement.

"Darla is in the bathroom, crying by now I presume," Mara shrugs. A smile spreads across her face as she watches her mother's expression morph from confusion into horror.

"What did you do?" She groans, rubbing her temples as if it physically hurts her to be standing here. People continue to congregate around them, swallowing them into a hole of soft female voices being drowned out by loud, booming male ones.

"And why do you assume I did anything?" Mara gasps. Sarcastically clutching her hand on the silk material of her dress over her pulsing heart. She stares at her mother with a wide-eyed, innocent smile. A smile her mother sees right through.

"Stay here and just don't do anything stupid. You hear me?" Genevieve grits, breathing as she rushes out the grand gathering room towards the wails of her eldest daughter. For once she wishes for a night of peace. But, of course, that will never happen with her most youthful daughter, who only serves to create trouble. 

"I would never," Mara whispers to the air, snatching a glass of champagne from Happy who makes his rounds around the room. The bubbly liquid strikes her throat as she takes needy gulps, accepting the buzz of energy it formulates.

She finds herself staring at the columns padding the room, all of them painted gold to match the black marble flooring with real gold specks. She welcomes the soft music crooning in the background, watching as wives clutch to their husband's arms in dominance. Observing as people plaster on dazzling smiles, dropping into a thin line as soon as they are alone.

She is fascinated by the act of it all, the real actors and actresses in this very room. The way they can morph their character to deceive you. Everyone here are enemies, trying to ploy others into believing they are friends. It disgusts Mara, but catches Emanuella's awareness.

"Don't look so glum, sweetheart," another hand latches to her. This time it's rested on her lower back, his toned arm snaking around her waist and pulling her into his heated chest. She breathes in his cologne, that of something expensive.

Raising her glass, as not to spill it, her eyes turn hard.

"Boundaries, please. I don't want whatever you have," Mara pushes herself away, taking another gulp of champagne. She avoids his eyes, staring anywhere but his face.

Gabriel, Darla's fiance, has a younger brother named Talon. He seems to have some sort of infatuation with Mara, who wants nothing more than to discard of him. Sure he has the looks; dark, almost black hair, and forrest green eyes. But he always seems to want something more. And his hands, they are always on her. Touching any piece of her he can get, like a leech.

"Ah love, but that just won't do. You see, I think I'm in love with you, and these feelings aren't going anyplace soon." He tries to bring her back to him. Her eyes connect with his hatefully while his are brewing with entertainment.

"Isn't there anyone else? Your father has to have set you up with a wife by now," Mara drones, discarding her now empty glass with another tuxedo. She crosses her arms over her chest, making Talon's eyes drop lower than her lips.

"The only girl I want, is you," he steps forwards, his hand extended outwards towards hers, "dance with me?"

"Please," Mara snorts, laughing airly as she backs away from him. Her heels, clicking against the floor tiles, moving towards the sea of faceless people.

"One day, my love, we shall have a party of our own," Talon yells after her, receiving dozens of eyes thrown in his direction. Mara uses the disturbance to duck into the crowd, weaving her way through the mass of people. Each of their aromas, mixing into a strong smell of flowers and wealth.

Somehow she manages to sneak towards the large, heavy doors, slipping past the guards posted at the entrance for security. Now in the back parking lot, darkness surrounding her, she unlocks the black tinted SUV with the keys she'd snuck out of their coat pocket. Slipping into the driver's side, she starts the car, blasting the heat and music.

She'll get reprimanded later for escaping her sister's engagement party, but Mara needs to breathe. She felt suffocated in that place, as if hands were stranglining off her windpipe. And Talon, he only makes it worse with his charms and good looks that could never sway her. He is always there, in the background, waiting for his chance to prey on her.

Mara finds herself driving down random streets, somehow ending up in front of Elias's residence. She's never been here before, of course, but something about it reminds her of Elias. Maybe it was the sad gray exterior, or the even sadder bushes drowned beneath a fresh powder of snow. Not a single footprint marks it, as if they never leave the house.

Waiting as her text goes through, she watches a figure move in the dark. Coming from the backyard, the shadow reflected off the light of the moon, moves towards her. She sees his approaching figure, broad shoulders, and bronze skin, as his eyes bore into her.

So brown, captivating you into their existence. Elias is someone that you can sense his mood radiating of him, like calling waves of emotion. A chill courses through Mara's spine in his vicinity, feeling rigorous with the sadness he constantly radiates.

She feels some need to warm him up with her own charms.

He slides into the passenger seat with ease, his eyes taking in Mara from head to toe, raking over her dressed up outfit. It is a hot gaze, driven off the inkness and protection of night's dusk. Then he smirks, pink lips turning up in the corners as his eyes meet Mara's dilated ones. The fire burning in her veins, kindled by his eyes, dies down.

"Shut up and don't ask questions," she shakes her head, laughing as Elias swipes his fingers across his lips. Twisting it at the corner and discarding its imaginary key. 

As if he could talk in the first place. Her laughter turns to giggle until he's smiling, his dimples protruding in the corners.

Mara feels his eyes on her side profile as she drives off, with no destination in mind but ahead. She follows the moon, driving down the darkened roads, drowning in their muteness. A good drowning, where you hold yourself under just a little longer to prove you can, to feel the rush of adrenaline. The pounding at your skull, the lower you sink, the more intoxicating the pressure.

All thoughts of Talon, of her family, she drops them. All the same, Elias withdraws all his problems because he can. They simply fall into each other's presence the way they seem to do. They didn't need words, they created a relationship off of who they are as people. A broken friendship that had many ridges, but is sealed tight with their characters.

They are each other's breath, really, and although neither of them are ready to take it a step further anytime soon, there is always the lingering pull. The tension between them isn't strangling but alluring, drawing each of them in.

Stuck in their own little fantasy of ignorance and bliss. Together they are themselves and not what society had deemed them to be. Money, race, religion, all of those fall under categories they could care less about when together.

Together they are just themselves.

---

Authors Note:

Thoughts on Talon? For some reason I kinda like him, weirdly enough.

Like, comment, and follow for more.

- ❤ Nia

Edited 3/30/2