"The Earth shattered, the sky opened

The rain was fire, but we were wooden"

✦

Two days had passed and I hadn't seen Harry. I hadn't seen much more than the ceiling of the guest bedroom for the forty-eight hours allowed between Friday and Monday. I was waiting, always waiting, for Monday. That one in particular.

It rained that Monday. Torrential pour. The newsman barking on the television said it's the worst we've seen in years. It pounded on the window pains with the ferocity of catapulted nails. The newsman barking on the television said they'd seen the storm coming but it's severity was unexpected. It was catastrophic, that Monday rain.

I never liked the rain and the severity and the catastrophe. It was always so loud. Not louder than the watch. Tick, tick, tick.

I had kept the ring and the watch in my hoodie pocket as I waited for that Monday. Having laid on my back, the jewelry sank into the curve of my stomach like massive rocks, my paper thin skin the only layer between it and the mattress.

My head sometimes ached and my brain sometimes felt like it was being mangled but everything hurt as I waited so I didn't fixate on it.

Matthew had been in and out two times and I etched the peck of his feet to the floor as he passed the room into my eyelids. The vision was tattooed there so every time I blinked he flashed before me. I wish I could say I preferred Harry's sparrows but I didn't.

Click, clack, click, clack. He never came in, I'm not sure if he even knew I was there. Or if he cared, he merely click, clacked by.

That click, clack was loud too. Not as loud as the watch or even that Monday rain to which it served as the prologue for. The watch went tick, tick and the rain went bang, bang and Matthew went click, clack and it was all very, very loud.

Harry was quiet. I hadn't seen him since I stormed out of his house after he'd been persistent in getting me to talk. What didn't he get? I don't like the loud.

The exchange made me realize Harry wanted me to open up to him. He didn't want to be neighbors or acquaintances, he wanted to know why I was crying and to ice my wounds. He wanted me to grow attached.

He knew I liked him and he apparently liked me too and we should just leave it at that till it fades. He confirmed gold is nice and shiny and expensive. Melly is gold and I bet Rose is too. I bet Rose makes him happy so he can be my happy Harry with Rose and I'll be Matthew's cold, grey shadow.

And today that shadow needed a reminder of why exactly she's in that place. That rainy Monday, the one I'd been waiting, always waiting for.

I'd leave in a couple hours to make it for his lunch in the afternoon. My hair was slick with grease and I smelled like abandon so I began getting ready.

I avoided the mirror as I entered the bathroom to shower, my skin pulsing and red by the time I finished. When I did look at my reflection for the first time in a while I stood there.

Last time I'd checked, I couldn't see the outline of my hipbone push through my skin there. My bottom lip didn't look so battered and bruised either. My figure seemed to have sunken all together, my shoulders slumped and features drooping.

It felt like I was looking at a portrait of a woman I'd never met. One much older than 22. This woman was dull and plain and painted in grayscale. It missed the mark, that painting; there was nothing moving or significant about it. It didn't capture movement or life, it was flat. It looked to be exactly what it was, paint on paper.

I threw on some clothes after the inconclusive examination. Deciding to put some makeup on, I blotted powder on my face, smeared translucent gloss across the jagged surface of my lips, and drug mascara through my lashes. The black substance smudged on my eyelids a bit, my hand too shaky to hold the wand steady.

Then it was time. I boarded the bus since we only had one car and Matthew took it to work. I usually took the bus, I preferred it anyways.

Every person I passed was a blurry mishmash of color as I sat down and the vehicle drove off in weather probably too dangerous to permit it. I kept my eyes closed to see the tattoo of Matthew there. My love.

My heart slowed once the bus stopped in the town Matthew worked. The office was a couple minutes walk away; for years I'd randomly drop in to see him and he'd have the ring on and he'd smile so big at my sight his face was on the verge of splitting. I hadn't visited in months.

When I got there the receptionist Gabriel immediately frowned. He was a tall, boisterous korean guy I'd become become friends with from my frequency here. We'd chit-chat as I waited for Matthew if he was busy.

He stopped mindlessly spinning in his desk chair when he whirred around and saw me, almost slipping off it. As I approached, he stayed still to steady himself but didn't look any less dizzy once I reached him.

"Hi," I said, sucking my lips into my mouth.

He took a minute before he replied, his jaw slack. His eyes flickered down to my left hand. "Evdoxia? It's been so long."

"I know."

"I missed you," he admitted, his body relaxing. "I was scared I wouldn't see you again."

By now Matthew already would've sprinted here from his desk, playfully yelling at Gabe to stop flirting with me before enveloping me in his arms and chanting I missed you, my love into my ear as if I hadn't woken up on his chest hours earlier. But he didn't. Cause he didn't miss me and I wasn't his love and I haven't woken up on his chest in months.

I gave him a sad smile. "I missed you too, Gabe."

It dawned upon me that today might be my goodbye to Gabe. That made me want to keep waiting.

"You're all wet," he pointed out, his brows bouncing suggestively.

My clothes and hair were soaked through and my mascara had to be a smeared mess. The rain was unforgiving, screeching at me as I walked. It had felt like ice cubes against my skull.

"You're making me question if I really missed you or not," I deadpanned at his silly innuendo.

He chuckled. "Don't act as if the real reason you came here wasn't to see me," he flipped his imaginary hair over his shoulder, "not that husband of yours."

We both paused once he finished, neither of us grinning. He looked down at my hand again. I forgot he saw Matthew everyday and his own ringless, watchless limbs. I wonder if they discussed it.

I cleared my throat. "How've you been?" Small talk it was.

"Good, good. You?" He was biting his cheek, I could tell he didn't know how act around me.

"Fine."

We both nodded and I shuffled on my feet and he swiveled back and forth a little on his chair.

"I should get back to work—"

"I should probably go—"

We accidentally spoke at the same time, each of us needing an escape from the awkward scenario. Neither of us knew how much the other person knew.

With a final glance over my head and pained expression from Gabe, I headed in the direction of Matthew. Once he'd been promoted to be the CEO, he got his own private office space with a tiny waiting room sort of thing outside it.

My hands were shaking so bad I couldn't get a good grasp on his ring in my pocket. He was right there though. I stood outside his door hyperventilating. I should've waited. I needed more time. Tick, tick, tick.

His lunch would start in a few minutes anyways, I didn't want to interrupt him. I sat down on one of the couches and steadied my breathing.

My focus was obliterated at the sound of heels tapping the floor. They were growing louder and louder, louder than that Monday rain and louder than Matthew's click, clack and even louder than the tick, ticks of the watch.

Melly. The secretary. She waltzed right in with grace, her ebony skin radiating palpable beauty. I shouldn't be surprised she was here, she was his secretary after all. They worked together. Everyday.

I studied her.

Like an animal awaiting its slaughter, my eyes bored into the gleaming knife my harvester beheld. Her entity was the metal edge, slicing through every loose thread intertwined between he and I.

My husband and I. Matt and Ev.

The swaying of her hips combatted any dose of my marital future into the glowing path of fire behind her. Each step of her stiletto impaled another scarce wisp of hope, setting it alight into a flurry of ash.

Her eyes illuminated a soft yellow of shadowed gold. Sparkling, crackling magma.

Her concaving neckline lengthened like the passage of molten lava, a soft, fluid motion. Each button slid from its pocket with ease from her nimble fingers.

As she strode, her thighs' brush against each other had the affect of grinding tectonic plates, sending a ripple of shock through me, causing the trembling of my hands.

I sunk into the leather of my seat, folding in on myself as if to become one with the furniture when she passed by, pushing her hair at the scalp upwards with her slender fingers.

Pressing the wrinkles from her tight skirt, her hands slid down her quadriceps before raising and clasping into a fist. Her soft pound on his office door reverberated through the enclosed sitting room, incessantly ringing in my head.

A sliver of light encapsulated her figure in an angelic glow when the thick black door creaked open. The ringing in my head faded to a gospel choir as her plush lips maneuvered into an innocent smile.

She was seemingly pulled inside, her legs dragging after her jerked torso and head.

Once the door slammed shut the room went mute and my body slid back into place and sank to the floor. I burrowed my face into my knees, which I pulled up to my body.

I heard giggles and the playful hitting of chests and the brushing of hair behind ears. I went deaf at the sound of smacking lips and clashing hips.

Twenty-seven minutes had passed, as recorded by the watch my hands held onto for life, for the life we once had. For Matt and Ev. It was 12:27 p.m. Tick, tick, tick.

Announced by the click of the door, she floated back into the room, her hair now a bit frizzy, her skirt sufficiently creased, and the buttons of her shirt done in an incorrect manner, each snug in the hole belonging to the one beneath it.

I choked out a sob, unable to silence my reaction. Officially in her path, I was on fire and it's impossible to burn without a scent.

Inhaling the smoke, her breathing stilled and she faced me.

She brought her hands to play with the cross necklace hung tightly to her throat, her eyes jutted open with surprise; with sin. The gold waned to a bronze in my presence and her large feathered wings shriveled to dust.

Did she remember me from the pharmacy? When she was buying pregnancy tests?

I rose from the ground in just as fragile a place as she. My gait was heavy and echoed a small prayer of misconception.

Our stare belonged to one another as if we both perceived ourselves to be the prey, waiting for an attack to launch.

A few feet away from her and a few feet shorter, I punctured my lip with my teeth while she rose her lean arm to embrace my hand in greeting.

As her palm met my own, mine incinerated. In retraction she pulled strings of melted skin with her, the remnants sagging in the air like wet gum.

She swiped the goo and claminess off on her skirt with a fleeting countenance of repulsion, replaced by one of mustered courage.

"Hello Mrs. Mi—"

"Hi," I interrupted to avoid hearing our names intertwined.

"Your husband should be available shortly. How long have you been waiting?" Her fingers began to drum on her legs as she asked. She chewed on the inside of her cheek.

"Long enough."

It was a staring contest—the first to blink lost the man hidden behind the door only steps away.

I always did have dry eyes.

Blink.

Matthew walked out, looking at Melly first. Then he noticed me and his smile dropped.

"Evdoxia?" He said, completely bewildered.

I noted how he he stood closer to Melly, right next to her. I couldn't speak.

His eyes dropped to her messed up shirt and he winced. "What are you doing here?" He asked nervously.

I looked between them and they both looked at me like I was a car crash. They stared at the disaster with pity and guilt. Could they at least have called for help?

"We-we need to talk Matthew," I stuttered.

"What about?" He was playing dumb, trying an innocent smile. If Melly wasn't here I bet he would've shunned me by now.

I fumbled my hands into my pocket, barley managing to grab a hold of what I needed.

I held out the watch on my index finger so it hung between us. Dull and grey and silver. "This."

Tick, tick, tick. Tock.

His arms went limp by his side. Then I saw it peeking under his cuff. Gold.

Matthew had a watch clasped around his wrist. A gold one. A shiny, pricier, better watch.

"Matt?" I croaked. A hot tear ran from my eye.

"I-I-Ev." Now he was the one stammering, the color draining completely from his face.

He took a step forward, his figure brighter directly under the light above. The watch slipped from my finger to the floor as he did.

I had burnt entirely, the fire finishing eating at what it could. My paper thin skin's ash littered the floor and I was officially nothing. No encapsulation of the empty, no disguise—I was very identifiably nothing.

Matthew lifted his arm as if to wipe my tears. My own flew up to stop it, wrapping around his wrist. I yanked it to where the gold watch was only inches from me. I looked between it and him and lastly Melly. Gold, gold, gold.

"Don't touch me," I commanded blankly, dropping his arm. I had stopped crying.

I reached for his ring as well, his dull, grey, silver ring, holding it sideways between my index finger and thumb.

"Did you replace this too?" I whispered, holding eye contact. There was no emotion in my tone.

"No, Ev, of course not," he sputtered out at a loss for words.

"Not yet?" I reiterated with a raised brow. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

He didn't answer, his lips parted and breath heavy.

"Matter of time, isn't it?" I enclosed my fist over the ring and over my love.

I bent down and grabbed the watch, stuffing the meaningless jewelry into my pocket. I spun around to leave.

"Ev?"

Clenching my fists, I kept my back to them as I stopped. Matt and Ev. Matt and Ev. Matt and Melly. "Matthew?"

"Can we talk please," he entreated.

I gave no response as I stalked out, leaving my trail of smoke as a final trace.

"Goodbye, Gabe," I said once I reached the lobby.

He nodded in understanding, this was goodbye. "I'll miss you, Evdoxia."

Then I was back in that catastrophic Monday rain. And it wasn't loud at all.

Tick, tock.

⇢ ⇢ ⇢

dun dun dunnn it finally happened

I feel like my writing has changed since

I wrote the prologue all those months

ago so it was frustrating having to

copy and paste it in I was like ew :/

if you had any expectations I hope

this lived up to them lol

peace out ☺