Kitt's NaNo '10

[Kitkat.]

The things in this book are true. Belladonna's warnings should be heeded, before the Romano's take up their threats on humanity. We're risking ourselves, telling our story to the world like this, especially the life of the poor writer we are using to tell our story to the world. This can be fiction if you want, but don't say that we've never warned you. And run away if you want, put the book down on a shelf and never return. Take things as they come, but don't wish that you could have had a warning. You did.

Christian

I slouched down, cowering away from my father as he tipped over the table. I skittered towards the door on my hands and knees.
“Get the boy! Stop him!” My father cried, waving his arms at me. My mother wailed, clutching my sister, Belladonna’s , hands in hers.
“We need to make sure he stays safe!” Belladonna squealed, her voice was shrill with panic.
“Why can’t you just let me go?” I asked.
My mother laughed. “You are our son! We love you!”
“You don’t love me! You hate me! What are these, if you love me so much?” I tore back my shirt, revealing the bullet-shaped scars.
“Accidents.” My father shrugged. “Plenty of people know we’re prone to having accidents with guns.” My father grinned wickedly. As I bashed against the wall, I heard a click.
“You’re going to shoot me?” I feigned horror, delighting my sister. She sprang towards us.
“Oh, no. Not if things go wrong.” She taunted.
“Well, best reconsider your plans!” I laughed as I slipped out of Belladonna’s grip, and glass shattered as I tore the door open and in to the table of champagne flutes. I heard a maid sob as the priceless glass studded the carpet.
I sprinted through a corridor, past my brother and his girlfriend, who were making out behind a pile of my father’s folders about something none of us knew. While dangling above the street by my arms, I realised how crazy I must be. I had nowhere to go. Nowhere but the light. I’d have to hide my eyes, but I’d be safe. Safer than here, anyway. I had to let go to drop to the cobbled streets, bloodying my knees, and elbow when I hit the ground. The gates to the Light were always open. I’d escaped from them, and I wasn’t going back. So maybe I wasn’t their perfect son, but that didn’t mean I could have a better life somewhere else.
The gates were in sight, finally. I could see some chance of actually succeeding in this suicide mission.
I hurtled through the gates, trying to escape to the Light, before my father’s men caught up with me. One managed to call the gates guard, who managed to slit a long cut in to my arm. I didn’t look, adrenalin hid the pain behind speed and desperation.
The light! I was there now! I just needed, just need to sleep. They couldn’t follow me, not here. Not until it was dark. Now I had to distance myself from the gate. I’d run as far away as I could in the time before dark, in the hope they wouldn’t be able to travel far enough in the night to find me and get back.
I’m losing blood. The cut is worse than I first thought. Distance is now the last thing on my mind. I need help. I have to at least get a bandage on my arm before I pass out in the street. And my feet are moving again. I’m not running, though, more stumbling across a concreted pathway towards a towering estate of flats. I can’t open the gate, so I have to climb over. I repeatedly get my hands and feet stuck, and fall down even more, making the woozy head and bleeding wounds increase. Once I’m finally over, I can hardly see. I can’t hold my arms up to move my hair. It pokes me in the eye, I bump my blood covered side against a wall, and suddenly I hear a cry. I feel something hard rush to meet me. The last thing I realise is that the cry came from me.
I collapsed.

[Kitkat.]

Tally

I noticed the blood outside the gate first. I couldn’t see him, not at first. I tossed over my bag and climbed – stupid, forgotten my keys – over the gates. My hands were now sticky with blood.
“Gross.” I wipe them on my shirt, since it’s a Friday and I can test some of mum’s ‘magic’ detergent, before I pick up my bag. Padding towards the tower of concrete that is my home, I have to cross the courtyard. I didn’t look, flipping through my planner for the weekends homework, until I heard him. Gasping, like a fish out of water. Covered in blood. Lying in a puddle of blood. Twitching like he was having a bad dream. I realise that I’m scared of him just before I stop myself from screaming.
He can’t have been here for long, somebody else would have seen him before me, and he wouldn’t be lying unconscious in the middle of the courtyard.
I sink down reluctantly, covering my knees with his blood, and poke him gingerly.
“Wake up, boy. I can’t carry you.” I murmured. He can’t be dead. His chest rises and falls, irregular and rapid as it might be, but he’s breathing.
What feels like hours of mumbling to him, prodding and poking, he awakes slowly. His eyes aren’t focused yet. It looks like he’s been poked in the eye by something.
“Boy?” I ask, scared. Is he opening his eyes for the final time, just before he dies? He moans, and I’m suddenly grabbing his hands. They’re almost icy cold in the mid-November winds. I’m a fool! I’ve been doing nothing for him, wrapped up in my coat, hat and scarf. I pull off my outermost layer – the thick, warm parka – and wrap it around him. “Warm up. Please. Don’t die.” I wrap myself around him, partially because the sudden loss of my coat has made me cold, but mainly because I want to keep him as warm as possible.
He’s coughing, coughing up bloody saliva on to my school shirt and blazer and tie and vest.
“Please don’t die. Oh, god. I hope this means-“ I babble, terrified.
“I- Hello.” He smiles weakly, and I lose control of myself. My lips are pressed on his. I’m kissing him. It tastes slightly of blood, and it’s cold, and it’s frightening. But I like it.
I have to move back to kneeling beside him when he needs to cough again. His hand touches my face, trying to prise me away. No blood comes up this time.
“Are you okay to walk?” I ask him.
“Where to?” His voice is croaky, like he hasn’t had a drink in a while.
“My flat. We’re on the first floor. My mum won’t be back until late, and you’re in no shape to be going anywhere else.” I tell him, smiling. “I’m Tally, by the way. Tally Martyrs.”
He smiles back, and coughs once again. “Well, Tally, if you don’t mind.” I felt my stomach churn as I helped him up, seeing how blood-drenched he was for the first time was horrible. “Christian. I’m just Christian now.” He replies, clutching his arm, which I can see has a long cut, from halfway between his shoulder and his elbow and suddenly I realise how seriously hurt he is.
“How did you do that?” I ask, not looking at his face as I lead him up the stairs slowly. I just stare at that horrible slit in his arm that could have killed him.
“I was... doing something I’ve never done before, and somebody caught me.” He replies eventually. I don’t ask because his expression is so full of pain, even though I can’t see his eyes, I can tell that he doesn’t want to talk about it.
I kick back the doormat, and pick up the key, glancing around while I push it in to the door, twist and push it open.
“Go on in.” I held it open while he hobbled in. I feel so guilty about his condition that I take the longest of times to put the key back under the doormat, enter, and close the door behind me. When I look at him, in his poor, battered way, he looks beautiful. I find myself struggling to find words. He isn’t looking at me, or the furniture. He’s looking at the photographs that make the beige room that I never wanted to call a home ours, my mum and mines. They’re only photographs of either me or my mum. There are not many from when I was around 14, until around six months ago. There were plenty taken, it’s just now they’re too painful to look at.
He smiles when he looks back at me, which makes his condition more bizarre.
“I’ll show you my bedroom, my mum doesn’t come in there, so you can recover in peace.” I smile at him, padding down the little corridor that connects the rooms together. The door with the multiple pieces of printed paper with my name written on leads to my bedroom. I shoved it open and pointed to the unmade bed in one corner. “Sit there, and don’t disappear. I’ll be back with some stuff for those cuts.” I told him before I shuffled off to the bathroom. Inside, I opened the cupboard where we kept the bandages, and various painkillers. I grabbed the entire box of medicines, and a damp flannel before I walked back.
Before I entered again, I just stared at him for a moment. He was peering in the half-open top drawer. I always left it open a crack, because the photo of my dad was always on the top. I always kept it like that, on top of the thousands of memories, he was always there. He was flicking through a pile he had taken out, and he was frowning. I saw the date that we always scrawled on the back so we never forgot when it was. Just over a year ago, when I was at my worst. I make a small noise unwillingly, and he drops them, revealing pictures of me with the terrifyingly prominent bones.
“I’m sorry!” He cries, but I shake my head.
“It’s nothing.” I quickly kneel in front of him. “Pass your arm.” I say quickly, offering my hand to take his arm so I can clean the muddy cut. He offers it up and I wrap my fingers around it so he can’t draw it back.
“You’re cold.” He says bluntly.
“You could have died. You needed the parka more than I did.” I reply, trying to blank everything but the cut out, especially my own emotion.
I don’t listen to him any longer. I can’t bear to. I take the bandages, wrapping them around and around his arm, like my brother showed me how to after he gave up medical school. Remembering him, I look away, to see one of the final photographs of him, before the horrific accident that tore our parents apart. That tore me apart. I don’t realise that I’m the one the tears are coming from.
“I’m sorry, am I doing them too tight?” I ask him, glancing up.
“Tally?” He almost whispers my name. “I’m not crying. You’re doing them perfectly.” But he doesn’t say anything more as I press the bandages in to his hand and collect the photographs. I put them in the drawer all at once, only wavering at the picture of my brother and me. I am young, and I still have the puppy fat everybody has at the age of four. My sister is laughing in the background, being far older than both of us.
I manage to get out the door before I lose control and start to properly sob. The door is closed, and I can’t see him. I know he can hear me though. But if this is what I have come to, accepting somebody that could have been a killer in to the horrible place I have to call a home.

[Kitkat.]

Christian

I stare at the bandages in my hand, finishing up the excellent job she has done with shaky fingers. It’s a messy job, but it’s better than it just bleeding in to nothing. After fastening it with the sticky tape that was in the box of things she brought, I open the door slowly. She’s still on the floor, shaking, and tear-stained.
“I thought I was dead, you know.” I whisper, about to kneel beside her, but my grit-covered, bloody knees stop me.
“I thought you were too, for a while.” She murmurs after a while. Her face is bedraggled and tear-stained. Make up is smudged around her eyes.
“I’ll go, if I need to.” I said, unsure.
“No! No, I’ll clean those scrapes.” She says, sniffing and wiping her eyes on a tattered tissue from her pocket. I offer out a grazed palm to her, and she takes it. I help her up and she smiles.
“Thank you.” I murmur.
She shuffles over to a small electronic box, and a song starts to play. It’s halfway through, but she smiles, and sings along quietly.
“ Love, is all that we keep, in the box that we burn, when you lay down to sleep.” She sings, and I listen, not saying a word as she uses the cloth to wipe my palms. When the song ends, she stops, and looks at my face.
I can’t keep a smile from my face.
“What are you laughing at?” She snaps.
“Nothing...” I press my lips together, and she sighs. “What?” I raise an eyebrow
“Your cuts, they go under your shirt.” She blushed. “I can’t get at that shoulder wound with it on.”
I blush, but do it. I pull the buttons free one by one until the shirt was unfastened and I slid it off. I close my eyes, wincing as the cloth probes the broken skin.
When she stops, I sigh, and she fingers a small spot. For a moment, I think I am safe. But then she speaks.
“What is this?” She asks, and I know what she is touching. A scar. More specifically, a bullet hole.
“A...” I don’t say anything. “I need to go.” I murmur finally.
“Christian.” Sh snatches my cheek, long slick nails digging in to my skin. “You are going nowhere with open wounds like that.” Her face is hard and stern, but her eyes are scared, full of tears.
“Tally, you owe me nothing. I owe my life. Let me go before something serious happens.” I insist.
“What could happen, I’m helping you?” She digs her nails in harder, and it hurts. I reach my hand up to push my hair over my eyes. I can’t risk her knowing. I don’t want another innocent person to get hurt.
“You won’t ever know.”

[Kitkat.]

Tally

His voice is terrifying as he prises my nails out of his cheek. He looks away. I sigh.
“You are ignoring me. I understand.” I murmur bitterly, finishing the clean-up job on his shoulder. The silence is cold and bitter until he breaks it.
“I’m sorry I snapped.” He utters finally.
“I’m sorry I asked, you obviously didn’t want to talk about it.” I say, bandaging him up.
He bites his lip as I let go of his shoulder. I wipe his bleeding cheek with the cleanest part of the cloth.
“I still... My mum... There’s some boys clothes in the other room. They might fit you.” I manage to say finally, remembering him and the photographs. The horrible one on the top. The horrific bony person that once had this body. That I could easily become again. I dab my eye with the sleeve of my jacket, before walking out. He follows shyly, and I can tell he is watching my every move despite his hidden eyes. When I open the door to the room my mum stores my brothers old things in, I sigh. The old bed is pushed against the wall, but his mattress and other belongings are gone. Except from his wardrobe and a couple of lots of drawers, the beige room was nothing. He’s never slept in here. Three years ago he’d gone. Gone from life, just gone. And I’d gone too. I’d gone insane. I’d not eaten for months, hurt myself in ways no person should, attempted on my own life. After the accident had crippled him so much he had taken his own. Nobody had ever recovered from that. I’d sobbed for hours on end.
“Thank you, Tally.” He smiles, taking my arm.
“Ta-take what you want, there’s nobody left who can wear them.” I say. “He... left a while ago.” I sigh. He was almost 20.
He opens a drawer, taking out a pair of jeans that Jay had outgrown before he died, but he’d never thrown them away
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Just me and my mam here. My dad has his new family now.” He’d been cheating on mum. He was engaged to his girlfriend. She was pregnant. Me and Sora were forgotten, left behind. But Sora had Guy, her lovely, friendly husband that she’d married just before the accident. And he never got to meet his nephew. Or his new niece that is on the way.
“I’m sorry.” He glances at me, his head sideways and pitying.
“I have never asked for your damned pity! I just want my brother back!” I screamed at him. “Just get changed and go.”
He nodded, and took the pile with him in to the bathroom. I watch him go, and walk to make tea. Just for one. I have to be strong. I told him that he had to go, and he does. He needs to leave, because of the event with the photographs. Every time I look at him, I see my bones in that photograph.
When he comes back, holding his clothes, I see he’s washed his face again, since I only wiped his chin.
“ Tally, those pic-“ He starts.
“I don’t want to talk about those, like you don’t want to talk about certain things. Just don’t discuss them.” I don’t look at him as I hand him a carrier bag of a little food, since he was painfully thin, but not to anorexic extents.
“I might see you again some time.” He says stiffly.
“Whatever.” I pad in to the room again, and I bring out a warm coat of my brothers. “Goodbye.” I say, holding it out to him.
He takes it and slips it on. “Thank you. You’ve been kind and I-“
“Just go!” I shout, losing myself to tears again. He nods simply.
“I understand.” He looks at me, judging my expression, my tearful eyes, before he finally walks out of the room.
I hear the door click, and I lose myself in tears.

[Kitkat.]

Nine days later

Tally

I shiver as I hurry down the stairs in front of Corda’s home. It’s cold compared to the sweaty inside of the party. I begin to walk home alone. It’s past midnight at least. At least mum was away with Aunt Mira. I looked inconspicuous with the Saturday night clubbers tramping down the street. It was so cold I risked the shortcut. The shortcut, full of perverts and homeless drunks, and druggies, that my mum warns me repeatedly never to use. Oddly enough, it’s empty. Empty except for a man who springs out of the shadows, and blocks my mouth so I cannot scream, but I want to. I’m terrified. This strange man, he was waiting for somebody, and I happened to be coming by when he was waiting.
“Please!” I hiss, while he fumbles with something. I see.. I see nothing but a knife, and I'm terrified. "What are you going to do to me?" I ask, scared of him, this strange, terrifying man that refuses to tell me what he wants.
"Oh, Missy, I think you can guess." He is stroking my cheek, down to my neck, shoulders, and beyond.
I sob as he lowers the strap on my dress. I swallow back a scream as his hand traces up my leg, I can see the knife lurking in his hand.
And then the dress goes lower and I scream.
"Help! Please, anybody! Just, help me!” I cry, and the knife is in my side, making me scream again. There is blood, covering my dress, my body, the floor, his hands. His huge, rough, cold bloody hands. His breath reeks of alcohol.
“Help me!” The man is shoving me, kicking me as I cry in the alley, clutching my holed, torn dress around me. Only one clear thought comes through the pain. Maybe I’ll die here.

[Kitkat.]

Christian

I hear a scream, and a cry. It reminds me of the girl who saved my life. I stop, and hear it again.
“Tally!” I shout, “Tally!”
“Christian!” She’s sobbing, I can see that, even in the chilling darkness. And she’s covered in blood. The man who must have attacked her is still there. She’s hysterical.
“Tally, you stay there, ’kay?” I say to her, and she nods. Her dress is tattered. And the blood only highlights her showing shoulders.
“Lovely girl ‘ent she?” He leers. His accent heavily accented by the alcohol he must have drunk by the gallon.
“Yes, not that you’d know.” I mutter, eying him, seeing if he was threatening her again.
“’Ere, sorry if she was summet special to yer.” He offers a bottle, and I take it warily.
“Yes, she is... special.” I glance at her, and she wavering in consciousness, I can tell.
“Oh, well... I suppose you’re not best pleased...” He’s wabbling, the open bottle sloshing in his hand.
That is the final straw for me. “No. I am not at all pleased.” I thrust the bottle back at him, and he takes it and swigs it. I splay my fingers and he flies backwards in to a pile of bins. Tally is unconscious now. She’s lost blood. A lot of blood.
“Tally?” I ask, scared. No reply. I have to carry her back. It’s the only choice I have. I can only do a patchy piece of healing magic. Damn my family, my DNA, the miniature piece of good magic I have in me.
I huff as I lift her unconscious, bloody body off the floor. Her hair covers her bare shoulders, and I want to remove the parka she gave me, but that would mean putting her down on the freezing ground again. She’s shaking, twitching in my arms. She’s having a fit. I start to hurry, still huffing with her weight, but as the twitching gets worse I start to struggle. She's getting worse, flailing and squirming in my arms. I have to set her down, or I'll drop her. Who knows what damage I've done to her? Stupid, stupid, stupid me. I've tried to save her life with dark magic. I'm part dark spirit, and she could be dying because I had to try to save her life with the tiny piece of good magic I have in me.
I'm sat on the steps, holding her head and her arms down as well as I can.
"Tally? Tally!" I'm scared, because the fit isn't stopping. It's going on and on and on. She's not stopping. She seems so endlessly quaking. The knife that wa lodged in her side when I found her is kicked halfway across the road. I take off the coat she gave me, and wrap it around her. "Tally!" I cry, finally using dark magic to hold her still. "Tally!" The dark ropes are snaking around her, holding her still as she tries to struggle against them.
And then she wakes, screaming. "HELP!"
The midnight ropes disappear in a moment. "Tally? Tally, I'm here." I try to reassure her. She's looks rabid, almost.
"You? You... what?" She's confused.
"Tally, you're bleeding again. Just let me carry you back. Which way?" I say.
"That way." She points, and looks at the growing blood stain on the coat.
I hold lift her up, and Tally rests her head on my chest. The fit has tired her out, and she's nodding off as I carry her home. I have to nudge her when I need instruction as to which way to go.
When I reach her flat, she's almost asleep. She unlocks the door, and I lay her in her bed. "Tally, you're safe now. Nobody will hurt you now." I whisper as I lay her unconscious body on the bed. I can’t take off the dress without revealing her, but the dress has to be in a tattered condition. The hospital would suspect me, check me out and when I showed up on no human system, things would go horribly wrong.
I sigh eventually. It is a little past two now. She’s still not wrapped up, and she thankfully hasn’t had another fit.
“Please don’t hurt me for this.” I mutter, feeling the nail marks on my chin from where she dug her nails in last time I met her.I have to get her out of that dress, or she might get infected, or worse.
She moans, because my fingers are still cold from sitting so still for hours.
“Hush, hush, Tally.” I whisper as I unzip the dress. Luckily she was stabbed in the side, not the stomach, so I roll her on to her front to unzip her, which keeps her dignity more intact than it would be otherwise.
Once the dress is off, I can’t look in her direction without... compromising her privacy. I open her drawers, thankfully finding a pair of pyjamas first drawer I open. I leave her underwear on. I don't want to hurt her, or her... personal space. She's unconscious, but that doesn't mean it's easy to do this. To strip her off and to put her in something warm. I close my eyes, avoiding her chest as I pull the loose top over her head. The bottoms are more awkward. I've left on her underwear, because that's a whole other book of etiquette I don't want to look at. Gentlemanly persona isn't much of a life, and I don't think about what lies underneath as I brush her hips.
She moans again, this time a word - "No," in a sleepy voice. I just lay her back down, wishing that I didn't have to clean the daunting, raggedy flesh of the wound.
I fetch a clean cloth, from a new packet, to wipe away the blood with warm water. I pray she stays asleep, otherwise she might see how I made it worse. I have. Instead of the small, neat knife wound, it's a jaggedy hole in her side. And it hurts to look at her.
I did that to her. And it might kill her if I do nothing. I nearly killed her while I was helping! I hurt her, no matter what I do. I hurt her because that's what I am.
"CHRISTIAN!" The shriek pierces every piece of me. Tally is awake, and I see my hand, covered in blood, her blood. She's looking at me like I'm a monster. Tears fall in to the hole, mixing with her blood, forming an excuse for why I can never touch her after this.
"I'm sorry." My apology is nothing compared to the hurt I've caused her. I wrap her waist in cotton wool, before wrapping it in bandages. I wish the wounds could stay lost like that forever. Lost in a cloud of protection. Lost in a memory, or a lie, or a truth, or a wish.
"Christian... What are you?" In a moment, I see in her eyes, every single lie I've ever told, every truth I hide, every life I've ruined, every death I have cause, every bullet, every scream, every tear, every boot, every kick, every shriek of laughter. And every hair in that laughing moustache. While I'm lost in her eyes, I wonder if... she's really human. She can't be. Not if she found out. But the tears in her side, they meant something. In some stupid law, every loophole, every book, there must be something about that. About what happened then.
"Tally, I'll explain tomorrow." I whisper, lying. She'll forget what was in her eyes then. She'll forget about me eventually. She'll know that she is... special to me. I lie her down, and go to the kitchen. A note on the side says her mother won't be back until the ninth. Almost a week for her to heal. I make coffee, decaf, and sit in the chair staring in to it. I breathe in the steam, warming my face. I'm risking her, staying like this. I'm going to hurt her again. But something inside me wants her. The brush of the back of my thumbs over her hips, the tingling finger tips that touched the back of her neck. I go to the tap, twisting and twisting the hot knob, and holding my hands underneath until it burns. I welcome the pain as a relief from the fleshy dreams of the girl that I tucked in to bed. The girl that saved my life just over a week ago. I splash the water on to my face, wishing the burning water would boil my face beyond recognition. Beyond any hope of being the chiselled man that my father is.
I turn off the tap, and pour the remaining coffee away. I don't want anything. I just... I don't know what I want now. I don't want to want her. I don't want to dream of her, like I know I will. But in a way, I welcome dreams of her to the nightmares of home.

[Kitkat.]

Tally

I wake up, slowly. My side aches like hell and I just want to puke. I look on the calendar. Somebody has torn yesterday away, because it says the right day. Sunday, the first of December. Delicate snowflakes are floating like miniature angels to the ground. I try to run to the window, but as I pull my legs in to hop out of the warm bed I receive a massive dose of pain that makes me shriek and fall on to the floor, rolling and rolling uncontrollably until I hit the wall. I'm directly beneath the window now, and on the side that hurts the most. I can feel tears, which shouldn't be happening. I can't get up, and I'm crying. Because if I can't move from the floor, and my mum doesn't get home until next Monday. I'm alone.
"Tally!" A voice, male with a hard edge. Christian... how?
"What the hell are you doing here?" I snap after he has lifted me back on to my bed.
"I found you. You got attacked last night. I carried you home." He says, his usually stony face worried, concerned. Something stirs inside me, and it worries me.
"Thank you." I whisper. I see my dress, over the chair. It's stained beyond washing out by blood and dirt. The hole in its side is surrounded by my blood.
"Tally, you were dying, it's the least I could do." He sighs, and I blush.
"I'm in pyjamas." My face hardens, and he blushes too.
"Yeah... about that..." He looks stunned, and I smile.
"I understand. It wasn't my favourite dress, anyway." He finds my comment funny, and I slap his arm.
"Ow! That hurt." He mocks hurt, and I frown more.
"Well don't laugh at me."
"I'll make you something to eat, if you're nice." He says, and I'm hungry, so I nod. Walking alone is out of the question, so he helps me. I lean on his warm, wiry frame as we make our way in to the kitchen. He pulls out a chair, and I lower myself in slowly, wincing.
"Toast and tea?" He asks, smiling, and I nod.
"Just milk. Turn the radio on, as well, please." He pushes the button on the top of my mum’s stereo, and pushes two slices in to the toaster after he plucks out some finished slices. It's a song we evidently both know, as he hums along."I didn't know you knew this." I say, and he shrugs.
"I only know it because of you." He says, and I blush. "You sang it when you were cleaning me up."

[Kitkat.]

Christian

She nods quietly as I hand her two slices of toast, and put a mug of tea on the table for her.
"I never realised you'd see me again." She murmurs.
"I didn't think I'd save you from getting raped." I say, cursing as I nearly cut my finger. Not a topping I fancy on toast.
"Hey!" She snaps. "Don't use language like that. This is my mums room." I know what she means without her saying. Her mother must spend her time in here, away from the photographs that fill the lounge.
"Tally, can I ask you a question?" I ask as I slide in to the chair opposite her.
"You just did, but you can ask as many as you like" She grins wickedly, crunching on her toast.
"You won't kill me for this?" I ask, and she winces.
"Probably not." She mutters.
"Why do you have a room full of guys clothing and stuff, but..?" I don't finish the question because she interrupts me.
"My brother was in an accident. It was the sixteenth of July. His birthday is the twenty second. He would have been twenty. It was three years ago. I was thirteen. He didn't die right away. He was crippled. He didn't want to live on as something he wasn't supposed to be. He took his life on the day before his birthday.” She explains in a low voice, tears shining like starlets in her eyes. I reach out for her hand, and she takes it without a word.
“I’m sor..” She cuts me off again
“Don’t! Don’t apologise. It’s like you’ve done something wrong.” Her eyes are saying more than that. She wants me to understand what it’s like for her, but I never will.
The tingling, deep in my fingers, it’s there again.
“Okay.” I whisper, and the tingling continues as I try to take my hand away from hers, to eat the toast, but she hangs on. “Tally?”
“Don’t let go. I’m scared.” She murmurs.
“Why, Tally?” I ask, stiffening.
“People think I’m fine. I keep out of the way because nobody understands what it’s like to lose somebody you love so much, and then get abandoned. I cried at the wedding because my Dad had just abandoned us.”
I wrap my arms around her. “I won’t ever hurt you.” I whispered. I liked this. I had her, and she was mine. No, that sounded far too like my father.
“No, no, no, Christian, no. I don’t want this.” She shrugs off my arms, and I nod simply.
“Tally, I understand.” I hear a flicker of the radio, and it oddly suits my mood. My stupid, uncontrollable longing for Tally to love me.
“You don’t know what it’s like to feel too much love.” She whispers, and I don’t. She’s right. I don’t think I’ve ever felt love before, so why do I know I love her?
“I’ve never felt love.”
“People love me because they think I’m beautiful, they think I’m perfect, but I’m not, I’m more broken than the rest of them.”
“My parents were always told as dead, I had nobody to love and nobody loved me back.” I lie. It’s a horrible, ugly lie, but Cillian is dead. Cillian was the only person who had ever loved me, and she was gone.
“Christian.” She whispers, and my heart skips a beat. But I don’t respond. “Christian.” She says again, but I only nod, still lost in Cillian’s memories. I loved her like a true sister. “Christian!” There’s a smashing sound, and Tally cries out. I instinctively swear, as the ceramic mug shatters in to my hands. I did that. I must have felt the anger that I felt when she abandoned me too so intensely that I must have lost control.
“Tally, it’s fine, it wasn’t hot.” But it would be, to a human. I let her fuss over me, fetching tweezers to pick out pieces of the mug from my cut hand, let her wrap it up safe. But she shows no further affection. She’s like a uniformed nurse, but she’s wearing pyjamas instead of scrubs.
But she doesn't know how much I long for her, just to to say those three words and mean them. Once she's satisfied with the job she's done on my hand, I go to get some clean clothes from her brothers room. I take them in to the bathroom and stare at my cut hand. It'll heal a lot faster than any normal injury, since my magic is designed for war. I'll be able to use it as normal within 48 hours. I couldn't save Tally, I don't know the answer to that.
I shower, dress, and offer to help her wash up the breakfast things, but she refuses because of my hand. So I sit and watch her wash, dry and then put away the things. As she stretches up to put the things on the top shelf, it reveals her hips, the gorgeous curve that leads in to her waist stretching to reach it, but not quite getting there. I rise, and I'm behind her in a moment.
"Let me do that, Tally." I murmur, slipping the plate from her hand and in to the rack. She smiles gratefully, and then says she's going to get dressed too. So I'm left alone again, alone with the dishes that she left on the side to be put away. I find where they belong eventually, and slide them in to place simply, before turning off the radio. The room suddenly smells of a delicate, but warm scent, and I look to the door to see Tally, in sweats and a t-shirt.
"Hello again." I smile at her, and she smiles back.
"Hello." She says, taking a seat in the chair I was sat in before. I notice she hovers a moment before sliding her elbows on to the table, and placing her chin in her hands. Her damp red hair is tied up, but the escaping little hairs find their way on to her shoulders. But she still looks beautiful.
"Well?" I ask her.
"You'd better not hurt yourself again, because if you lose much more blood on me then I may as well go to the police now." She teases. I smile, and pick an orange from the fruit bowl on the side. I toss it in to the air towards her. She catches it easily.
"You need vitamins if you're going to heal up quickly." I say to her.
"And you don't?" She asks, raising her eyebrows.
I take another orange for myself, and sit opposite her. We make a pile of peels together in the middle of the table, before we eat them. It's quite nice, just getting to be a normal person with her for a while. I ask her about her school, her friends, and she answers everything without questioning me. But I know she wants a lot of questions answered.

[Kitkat.]

Tally

I answer his questions, and never ask him any, because he seems so closed off about his own past that I don't even consider asking him about it. But I want to.
We spend the day not really doing much, just talking, but there's long awkward silences where neither of us say anything for a long time. And then the phone rings.
“I’ll get it!” I say, glad for the space from him. It’s not that he’s gross, it’s just he’s a little more mysterious than any guy I’d ever want.
“Hello?” I say, as I press the phone to my face.
“Tally? Tally! You didn’t call when you got home last night!” It’s Corda. Daft, lovely Corda who turned 16 last night.
“About that, I was a little tired, and kinda fell asleep before I had the chance to call.” I reply, covering my tracks.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I phoned because my parents are just being annoying now, because we have to clean up. If I could escape around yours then it would be...”
“Corda! No, not today. I have... guests.” I glance towards the kitchen, to see Christian leaning on the doorframe. I drop the phone, and swear as I bend to pick it up.
“Tally?” He raises an eyebrow.
“Shut! Up! You!” I shove my hand over his mouth, but he pulls it away easily. He’s not angry, though.
“Guests? Ooh! Is that a boy I hear?” Corda is excited easily. I frown at Christian.
“Corda, no. Just... not today.” My side is killing me. “Look, I’m suffering because it’s the day after the night before, if you know what I mean.” I sigh, giving the dagger eyes to Christian.
“She can come round if you feel up to it.” He says quietly, but I shoo him out.
“Oh, okay. I’ll see you tomorrow then!” I can almost see her smile from here.
“Corda-!” But she hung up. Just like her. I storm in to the kitchen, frowning at Christian.
“Thank you!” I frown at him, and he raises his hands in surrender.
“Kill me now, if you like.” He says, leaning against the fridge.
“No, because then who wouldn’t burn the toast while they make breakfast. Not my mum.” Mum never seemed right these days. Some days she’d obsess over me, and others she’d just... fade...
“Tally? She’s only gone for just over a week. It’s only the first.” He says, and I nod weakly.
“Christian, I’m sorry for being stupid.” I say blankly, as I watch the sun disappear over the other buildings.
“Tally, it’s okay.” He sighs.
“It’s not. You’re hurt, and I’m hurt, and Corda’s going to ask questions when she comes over tomorrow.” I bite my lip. “And it’s not like they’re the ones with the easy tick-one-box answers.”
“Just... Tally, I don’t know. Just tell her the truth.” He whispers, coming to sit beside me.
“It would help if I knew the truth. If I could remember what happened.” I whisper in reply. Despite my suspicions about him, I find my head leaning on his shoulder. It smells of my brother, despite the fact he hasn’t worn those clothes in years, they still smell of him. His slightly rugged, outdoorsy, bookish scent lingers over the clothes. He seems surprised at this, but he doesn’t move me away. I feel so tired suddenly, that I can barely move.
“Are you okay?” His hand brushes my hair as he puts his arm around me. It feels so comforting, to just feel so at home with him.
“Yes. I’m fine.” I whisper, covering my mouth as I yawn. I feel him relax, just a little, but I feel wanted. I guess he knows I was lying about being loved too much, by too many people. All I want is to feel this close to somebody forever. But I don’t want it to be Christian.