Jace approaches me again, a strange dead grief in his black gaze that mirrors my mood. From where I'm seated on the couch with my laptop in front of me, I can see clearly that our auras are running parallel tracks: neither of us really doing too hot. Ruffled, unkempt hair, mauve half-moons of exhaustion under our eyes, compliance in our actions - life and its terrible foreshadowing of the future has crushed our wills, kept us both awake late at night, consumed our typical fervent courage.
Still, I try to hold up, but the effort is weak.
"So what'd you find?"
Without responding, Jace sits down next to me and leans forward, resting his face in his hands and exhaling deeply. I know that exhale: like he's trying to let part of his soul escape freely. Putting my laptop aside, I lean on his shoulder and wrap my arm protectively over his back, knowing already that we've come across the same conclusion in this period of our lives.
"What's the point, Clove?"
His query is tight and muffled, and, when he exhales again, he shakes. My own body tenses with nausea at the feeling of his trembling.
"I’m sick of hearing the same words over and over," he says at last, monotone, "I know you wrote Araine and I to never be together again...because, really, I'm just you in a different world, aren't I? So what's the point? Until circumstances change for you, they won't change for me. You simply don't know what it'd be like to meet again with your best friend after you've been separated for so long, so you can't write us back together."
I don't reply to his accusations.
I have no defense.
"Clove," there's new pleading in his voice now, and the room suddenly goes blurry to me, "you haven't written anything in forever, and what you do write is sappy junk. You always said that writing is a way to convey emotions, so take a good long look at what you've been releasing in the wings of your words. It's been the same song for months, an indication of emotional stagnancy, an indication that you're giving in to quick surrender."
My hands tighten into fists, and I bite my lower lip.
"You weren't given heroine strengths and weaknesses for no reason. Clove, you have the ability to change yourself, even if you can't change what you're given." Jace pulls away from me and catches my gaze in his. "Please. It always seems pathetic to fight against what neither of us can help, but, if you keep zoning out like this, finding ten thousand ways to write the same dull pain, you're useless. Get your head back in the game, idiot; I'm done listening to you whine about your lack of will when you refuse to put in the sacrifice required to improve, got it?"
Those words, threats, demands.
He's only too right about everything: about me, about him, about why I can't write anything solid anymore. My hot tears drench my face silently, and I get up, angrily shoving him away and stalking out of the house for a nighttime run.
~ ~ ~
Write on!
Clove
I like how you wrote that: talking yourself through something using a character's voice. I've done that. :)
ReplyDeleteYeahhh, Jace is kinda speshul. x)
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