#uhh so this is long like 1.9k words long and i still ahve more i want 2 write

[lvcienne]

♡ — ‹ memory › 「 to fall out of love. 」

from when lucienne was in high school & the tragedies that become of it.

     her fingers are curled around a red solo cup as the bass of the music resonates within her. she’s watching clusters of people entangled with each other all around the house of some fraternity -- she doesn’t remember which but she knows that her ‘ friends ’ snuck her into a stanford house and now she’s here with beer warming her insides. what she does remember is her father yelling at her for her most recent B of the marking period and how she’ll never become a doctor if she won’t take high school seriously. she remembers calling her boyfriend and hiding her real emotions in favor of some adrenaline that will distract her of the anger burrowing deep in her stomach. she pretends not to remember how much she hates the inattention that she receives from her father and stepmother and she will pretend that she does not care.

     although her fingers are drumming to the beat that the speakers produce, lucienne is not in the mood for dancing. her eyes are wandering, searching for ian among the dense crowd. he was the one who brought her to the party and it was his car that she snuck out to from her bedroom window. she doubts that her father nor her stepmother has noticed or would care if they saw that she left it open for the curtains to billow. and although she does not want to dance, she simply wishes for his presence.

     luci doesn’t recall falling as hard for anyone as she did for ian. she met him in her english class, only six months ago. she had spotted him -- bright green eyes that spoke of the forests she used to walk through with her family -- and it wasn’t much later before he appeared at her locker and decided to take her out to dinner. since then, she had given her heart over to him with a silent vow to be better than her parents’ no-longer-existing marriage. she would give the universe to him if she could, would give him anything ( she is blinded by this; she will not see the that he will only give her the sun in return ) . she loves him, uses the word so easily, and she knows that he loves her and it is that which she clings to in hopes of feigning that the rest of the world is alright.

     but she can’t find him in this moment and she’s desperate to discover where he disappeared so she finds one of her ‘ friends ’ in the kitchen, one that happened to come along with her and ian. her ‘ friends ’ had prepared this whole operation of infiltrating a frat party and were milling about -- dancing, flirting, drinking. her friend, naomi, has mascara running down her cheeks and her eyes are puffy but there’s a glass bottle in her hands and smears of black on the back of her hand. she’s leaning against the counter and staring at the tiles. lucienne almost asks what’s wrong, what happened, but the unspoken code of the group says not to care too much and she abides by it. she buries her concern in lame comments and self-centered questions.

     “ you have mascara all over you. you should clean up. ” lucienne’s obvious statement earns a blank stare from naomi but her mouth twitches into a smile anyways, the both of them well in practice of hiding emotions and interest in others’ lives. 

     “ i guess i do, ” naomi replies with a small giggle but if lucienne’s senses had not been buried so deep, she would detect that her tone was void of the emotions that were supposed to make naomi sound convincing.

     “ have you seen ian ? ” lucienne inquires with a tilt of her head, a deflection from the real problem. “ i lost him. this party’s way crazier than i thought it would be. ”

     “ i think he went upstairs ? i’m not sure. ”

     “ thanks. ” and so lucienne left her crying friend in the kitchen of an unknown frat because the group had curated her carelessness and she prefers to be accepted by the group than anything else.

     she traverses the staircase and it’s a relief for the music to be muffled upstairs -- she’d have to admit that whoever was picking the music had poor taste. she begins walking down one part of the hallway that the stairs opened up to. there’s only a few people talking or making out. luci turns around, about to give up, when a door swings open and her world shatters. the people talking, the music thumping below, the noise outside the house -- it all becomes muffled to her. the world pauses on its axel as she watches two familiar people -- utter strangers in the moment -- stumble out of a bedroom. they’re laughing and touching and holding hands and walking way too close. lucienne’s eyes are darting back and forth to process it, having to register that yes it is her boyfriend who is holding hands with yes her considered ‘ best friend ’ in the group.

     they haven’t seen her yet and she’s considering all the different scenarios as to why her boyfriend is with someone else and maybe she’ll just ignore it and that she should trust him -- then he leans down to kiss her and her heart is splintered into millions of pieces on a hallway floor. her hands are curled up into fists, but it does nothing to contain any lava beginning to erupt within her lungs. 

     “ what the hell ? ” is her first reaction as she takes two steps back and nearly knocks into someone else, dark eyes widening as every word she speaks now cements the truth she desperately wants to ignore. “ this cannot be happening ” -- she points an accusing finger towards her best friend and then her boyfriend -- “ oh my god. ” tears are beginning to blur her vision and she can feel one escaping out of the corner of her eye, driving a river down her cheek.

     “ i can explain, luci, ” her best friend says, taking a step towards her but luci backs away even farther -- they are both strangers to her now.

     “ no, fuck this, ” ian snaps bluntly and walks right up to lucienne, her eyes just as puffy and mascara just as smeared as naomi’s in the kitchen. “ you know what, lucienne ? the big secret is that you were a bet and that’s all you meant to me. the guys put a bet that i could sweep you off your feet by the end of the school year and guess what ? i did. you fell so hard so quickly -- it’s pathetic, lucienne. ”  

     there is silence that resounds in the hallway and any other conversation that was emerging has vanished. her hands are shaking as she stares at ian with black tears, searching for a sign on his face that resembles the fact that this is a joke, that what he’s telling her is a prank and she’s waiting for the rest of her group to come out and surprise her and laugh it off with her. but of course, it never comes, and she is still as her heart is stepped on by ian, each shard paining her. and then, the final blow that sends it all crumbling:

     “ i never loved you lucienne. so get the fuck over it. ” 

     there are castles that she’s built in her head and every stone in its walls are being blown apart. the explosions are resounding in her ears and the dam in her mind that’s been sealed off is threatening to flood over. lucienne’s eyes flare with anger for only a single moment before she can feel fire in the back of her throat and a crack echoes as the back of her hand connects with his cheek.

     “ you’re a dick, ian, ” she retorts, each word said with emphasis and pounding vexation, his name now poison in her mouth. “ have fun fucking my ex best friend. ”

     she races past them to head for the stairs, her shoulder purposely tossed into her ( ex ) best friend’s arm as more tears are about to spill over. luci doesn’t bother turning her face towards the kitchen and instead heads straight into the california air. the door flings open and the breeze immediately hits her face as she gasps for air. she stalks to the curb and sits down as sobs rack her body, tears spilling without a fuck given because she’s still trying to process what she just witnessed. 

     she's tempted to throw the pieces of her heart into the street for the cars to run over or into the fireplace inside for them to burn. she wants to forget about ian fucking her best friend and it takes some time before the burning sensation in her rib cage simmers and it’s replaced by a flood. 

     she had made so many promises to him, had given him every goddamn piece of her because she really would have done anything for him. she loved him, she loved him, and every thought about him in the past tense was devastating. she clings to the memory of them kissing in crowded hallways and them holding hands at lunch and their dates to the movie theater and savors them as they were before she knew they were only lies. and in the future she’ll call him just for the voicemail and cling to the pre-recorded voice of a time that she’d never thought she’d miss.

     but she does not throw away her heart. she instead takes the pieces and gently stitches them back together. it will never be perfect but she cannot find it within herself to leave her rib cage vacant. she stands up and dusts herself off. she wipes the tears from her face and she doesn’t care about the remaining black residue on her cheeks or on her hands. she doesn’t care that ian left her in the dust and that she had spilled her heart for him and all he did was squash the remains. she doesn’t care that her best friend was no longer trustworthy and pretended to act remorseful. she doesn’t care that her father doesn’t pay attention. and she’ll tell herself that she doesn’t give a damn about anyone or anything because it’s easier to lie. she’ll walk back into the fraternity and dance like hell and down a second cup of alcohol because she doesn’t know how else to deal with it besides distracting herself from her problems.

     lucienne delgado zips up her heart and only revels harder; love has made her grown hard but what she does not know is that she will open up her heart again and it will make her grow soft. she does not know that loving and hurting will be a cycle and she does not know that later she will embrace this. soft hearts are curated in fire and this is only one inferno.