Notes, etc: I'm sorry. I'm sorry! It's been eons and eons. But here it is, in all its unnecessarily angsty glory. I know this story is unnecessarily angsty, to the reviewer who commented on that. Only I can't help myself. I do apologize. I'll resolve this. Sometime. To my readers: I love you for hanging in there. Please keep reading because I swear to God I will finish this.

This chapter contains: second person, nameless people whose names you should be able to guess, implied self-mutilation, rape, and other lovely stuff.

Chapter 24: Your Lover's Tongue

        You sit at the table and stare at the food your mother has prepared. Your father eats with sinister gusto, careful not to make a noise as he cuts, chews, swallows. Your mother hovers in the edges of your sightlines, sipping at her wine.

        You wait.

        You don't expect conversation. Even if you have been away for months- 6 or 7, you can't remember- this cold silence that raises the hair on your forearms never truly goes away. It pumps quietly through your veins on nights when your lover's head is buried in the crook of your neck and shoulders. It bounces around your ribcage and makes your fingertips tingle when the rest of your friends are laughing at someone else's expense.

        You do not raise your eyes from the plate set in front of you. You do not move your arms or turn your hands over to scrutinize your palms like you do in class when you're bored. You do not sneak a look at your mangled forearms, so intimately scarred, mirroring the damage in your heart and on the backs of your eyelids.

        The scrape of your father's chair against the stones signify the end of dinner. You ignore the flurry of activity by the house elves to clear the table and stand as well, your black robes shuddering as they fall politely around the angles of your body.

        You haven't eaten in 3 days. If your lover was around he would irritate you into eating and then later tenderly slip pieces of rich, creamy chocolate into your mouth and whisper lovingly into your ear.

        But you left your lover bleeding and nearly unconcsious on a train platform, and your parents couldn't care less whether or not you are slowly starving the life out of your body.

        You stand in front of your full-length mirror and hate yourself. You hate the way your silver hair falls over your eyes and the sharp lines of contrast between your plaster-white skin and your black robes. You hate your ribs and hips and knees, so sharp you could use them as weaponry. You hate your rose-petal nipples and your collarbones and your abdomen and the fine hairlessness of your torso.

        You are beautiful and you know it. The bruises from your last visit to this place, your home, have long since faded and melted back into your flesh. Your scars have turned a pearly pink that catch the light and glisten enticingly.

        You thought you had been healed by kisses and your lover's warm tongue rasping against the echoes of your violations. But in your mind your scars are bursting open at their seams and blood is carving new paths on your flesh. Your lover's warm green eyes are fading and closing and looking away from you with disdain.

        And you stand there helpless, your reflection bleeding the blood that ought to have been yours.

        You have been waiting for him. He has gotten quieter in the months of your absence. He creeps through your room and all that notifies you of his presence is his shadow, quietly devouring yours.

        You do not move or acknowledge his presence. And when he buries his fingers in your hair and pulls so hard you think your neck will snap you refuse to cry out in pain.

        You meet his eyes for the first time in 3 days. You've been avoiding him and sleeping outside but you're tired of hiding. Besides he would have found you eventually and would have been all the more furious for it.

        So you stare into his eyes and it is not exactly out of defiance but more a refusal to be broken so quickly.You are saying: I am fifteen now and someone loves me.

        He is saying: love does not exist.

        You let yourself float away from your body. You watch from above as he sinks between your starkly white legs. His fingers leave bruises on your fragile skin.

        You watch as he shreds your identity carefully between his teeth and in his eyes. You watch as he wraps his fingers around your neck and almost chokes you with the violence of his lust. You watch as your heart shatters quietly, falling piece by piece out of your ribcage and onto the floor.

        Somewhere your lover is wrapped around himself in an empty bed, trying so hard not to cry his eyes burn and his teeth grind loud enough for you to hear.

        Somewhere your lover with disheveled black hair and crooked glasses is tasting each piece of your heart as it melts onto his warm and raspy tongue.