"The Earth shattered, the sky opened

The rain was fire, but we were wooden"

✦

Matt's nose twitched; he was frustrated. Hurt. "Do you really mean that?"

I realized this was the worst that could happen. His face. Watching his hope deteriorate into abrasive shards, forcing their way down his throat. This face looked like my face pre-digestion. It's not ugly. It's just sad and dull and grey. Corpse-like. I couldn't stand to see it; no wonder he would never be around then.

I looked down to my dress, catching a loose thread in the corner of my eye. I wrapped it around my finger tightly and yanked it.

"Fuck," I cursed under my breath, tears welling in my eyes. Instead of snapping off, my tug ripped the stitch further, skewing the design of the lace there.

He was still waiting for my reply but now I was getting choked up and had nothing to say to him other than "fuck." I mean, how could he even ask me if I believed Evdoxia Blaney suited me when he's the one spilling over in absolute regret?

"Ev?"

"Maybe," I croaked with an unsure lilt.

I was only being stubborn, trying to maintain my dignity. But my dignity shouldn't come at the sacrifice of this—the worst that could happen. "No, Matt, I... you know it was good—or we were good. Happy."

I flexed my fingers, looking down. So barren. Sniffling, my desire to cry dissipated as I regained my senses.

"Then why'd you say that?" He asked, sounding like a small, sad child.

"Because it was only a temporary fix," I shrugged. "Us, together, we were just desperate to feel something. And then when we did it was just a ticking time bomb till we realized that that feeling wasn't enough."

He was twitching his nose again like he was a bunny, making me an owl, his less known predator. It didn't feel as though we were in a pack anymore.

Matt couldn't deny what I said though, so he sat silent and subservient. Waiting.

"Love isn't enough," I finished.

Because while he couldn't deny that our familial trauma is what concocted our need for one another—our need to establish stability with a marriage certificate—I couldn't deny we loved each other.

But fairytales don't tell you how unless it's grown in the perfect environment, with sun and rain and fertile soil and most importantly, space to grow, it's doomed.

We should've left, he said. And he was right. Looking at him now all bunny like, I wondered what we were really trying to prove. Our town was nothing but a bear trap among an entire forest. And we chose to stay, trying not to wrench its claws out from our bleeding guts but to let our skin heal around them, to try to make the pain comfortable. Though I could still feel them now, crunching my rib cage into itself and deflating my lungs.

But Matt's a bunny. Maybe he never had a choice to leave, his only initiative for leaving being me. Because truly, how could a small rodent escape a death trap for an animal over ten times its size. He could find joy in watching flowers grow around him, snickering a whoopsie daisy, content that even daisies would never be completely in grasp.

His expression become more resigned, and I knew he agreed that love wasn't enough, specifically when one of the two participants had outgrown their means to live.

"Yes, I guess that's right," he said, moving to sit down at the foot of the bed. I followed him, sitting across from him against the headboard.

I believe it was the alcohol's effect giving way to our realizations, as our brains wondered aimlessly without bound, that made him now understand that there was no sense in dishonesty when this was it. (The end.)

So he expanded upon his statement, "I kinda questioned it when you told me I stopped loving you... like you almost convinced me. Cause why would I do it, why would I cheat on someone I love? I didn't know the answer myself.

"But when I was with her or when I took off the watch or even the ring, I still loved you, Ev. But it was different because when we met not too long after your mom left, I think our relationship fulfilled the empty cavity her leaving left in you. And then her dying just drilled another and this time around me existing wasn't enough to fill it.

"You were so depressed. I should've been there for you—I know that—but you're right. Almost. Because it's not that love isn't enough, it's that our love isn't enough."

It's as if his wrinkles had dissolved to smooth skin and his joints had released all pressure when he had said this aloud. He seemed lighter immediately, like he had reverted physically and mentally back to months before everything came crashing down.

I peered into his eyes and felt nothing. And this made me feel lighter too because his eyes used to be icicles but now they gave me zero sense of anything at all. Not warm, not room temperature, and not cold, they were just pupils and irises and sclera. Just eyes.

My lips pushed my cheeks into a smile and he tilted his head at this, probably confused. Nodding my head, I explained, "I like that better. Our love isn't enough.

"It didn't age gracefully with us, I suppose. It was elementary. More need based than want based. I think you stopped wanting to love me."

Matt didn't react. And I knew whether it was a shrug or nod or verbal response, he hid his initial reaction because he likely thought it would've hurt. So he thought for a minute of how to respond as carefully as he could instead. "I forced you to stop needing me."

He looked down and I could see him slightly stiffen, retracting back into the stress. "I'm sorry."

I shrugged. "It doesn't really matter to me anymore. When my mom died I shoved you away and slammed the door. You may have stopped trying to open it, but I don't know if I ever would've let you in regardless.

"I didn't let myself heal on my own when she left. I let you distract me for six years. She was always going to die and it was always going to kill me so it was just a waiting game." Tok, tok!

At the beginning of Matt's affair, it made me believe that our relationship was what was destined to fail. That's only partially true. It was more so the fact that I was destined to outgrow my cast when the entire time I need actual surgery. My moms death gutted me and I simply needed to sew myself together.

His affair lengthened the process because it gave me something to simultaneously heal from. Which made it all the more painful and scarring in the end. But at least I had made it and I could walk again. Well, walk away for the first time, limping or not.

I cleared my throat to interrupt the quietude we had settled into. "I already told you, Matt. I don't want to hate you. Hating you won't make me forget everything. It doesn't make me feel better."

"What will?" He asked, relaxing again slightly.

"Neutrality. Not acting like nothing happened and like I can trust you again but moving on from all this peacefully."

"Okay," he nodded. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"Forgiving me?" He questioned himself.

I forgot I was still in the wedding dress until he said that. It was really uncomfortable, squeezing me in all the wrong places.

"I don't forgive you, yet, I don't think. I just don't want to fight," I said, my voice very telling of my exhaustion.

He sucked his lips into his mouth. The odd barrier was back because he didn't know how to comfort me and assess the situation properly with the way things were.

"I'm tired," I admitted gloomily, glancing to the window.

The sun hadn't set yet and I had no idea of the time but I knew I needed to sleep. I wanted to escape reality for a moment and wake up hopefully with some more clarity. I wasn't quite drunk but I still felt fuzzy and it was starting to bother me. Not having total control over my brain was frustrating during this conversation.

Matt stayed still though, not comprehending I wanted to literally sleep right that second.

"Can you get out?" I asked, trying not to sound rude.

He looked out the window then too and frowned. "Yeah."

Before he was out the door, I remembered, "I took your tux out too. It's on the closet floor."

With the doorknob in one hand, he pulled the door softly close as he said, "that's okay. Maybe another time."

There'd never be another time and we both knew it.

I yelled his name as soon as I remembered what a straight jacket this dress was. He came barreling in immediately, a look of alarm on his face. I don't think he made it very far from the door.

"What?" He asked, scanning my scrunched up body.

"Can you unbutton it?" I bent my head up in reference to the buttons lining my back, specifically the ones I couldn't reach.

"Uh, yeah, of course."

He moved slowly towards me, not dragging his feet but not skipping either. I shifted around as he did so, kneeling on the bed.

I bit my cheek when his hands met my back again. It was so intimate, the small gesture, especially when you have memories where the small act provoked more venereal actions. But certainly not this time around, with a worried, clunky silence filling the space between us like bricks.

He wasn't taking his time either, his fingers fumbling around almost clumsily; they might've been shaking, but I wasn't sure. When he had cleared as little buttons as possible for me to squirm my way out, he was gone. I didn't turn to try to catch him leave but he was too quick for me to have anyways.

I stayed still for a minute or two before sinking face first into the comforter in child's pose, though with my arms crumpled around me. A handful of the duvet suffocated within my grasp, giving me a sensory experience to fixate on. I wasn't quite sure what to think or what to do. What was next? What comes after the end?

Fighting my exhaustion, I rolled off the bed onto my feet. The dress slipped further down my arms, puddling at my waist. It was too tight to slip over my hips so I had to bend towards my feet and slide it up over my head.

Leaving the lace and tulle as a heap on the floor, I made my way back into the closet. Passing the rack on the right with all my clothes, I opted to shuffle through the shirts on Matt's side. I was on the hunt for a soft shirt hidden in the back, one he hadn't worn for months. One that hadn't seen Melly and was all Matt, pre-Matthew.

I came across a white button up squeezed between a thick mass of his crammed old shirts by the end of the rack.

Bringing it to my nose, I hoped to catch a whiff of his old cologne that I'd bought for him. It only smelt like closet though. Unspecific to anyone in particular. However, there was a small stain on the chest of the button up. A coffee stain.

It pained me to fail in the scrounge for a memory of the stain itself. Of how it found its way there or if we tried to wash it out. Did I even know about it before today? The specked, faded stain was exactly what I wanted—a semblance of Matt.

But it didn't really feel like a reminder at all. Hell, it could've been any coffee-drinker's shirt. A grunt of frustration escaped me but I slid the fabric over my shoulders regardless, only buttoning a few of the button holes so it hung more loosely from my torso.

Making my way in front of the mirror, I wasn't sure what to make of myself. I felt anonymous. Like this shirt, unspecific to anyone or anything. No evidence of an identity separate to anyone else's. Who am I?

I didn't feel like a whole person. Rather, a patchwork of my impressions on the people around me as if I'd experienced them from the third person. You could argue that's what we all really are, a mix mash of everyone's interpretations of us. But a crucial component was our own interpretation.

I didn't have one though. I was Matt's Ev. My father's forgotten daughter and my mother's abandoned one. Maybe Harry's friend. That was it—that was my identity, my role in my limited relationships.

Maybe last year I would've called myself an artist, preaching how I found my thing. I barley think about art anymore though. I think about office crushes and whether or not they always proceed to affairs; how they begin in general. I think about how long it took Matt to decide to take off his wedding ring and if it was an easy decision. I think about divorce.

The only trace of art on my mind was Harry. Happy Harry. But I hadn't thought of him since I saw him last. I contemplated texting him, but figured I'd be better off doing so when I woke up later.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

I slept for over twelve hours. I woke up to daylight swelled in the form of luminescent rain drops pecking at the windows like woodpeckers.

It was the first time I'd been able to sleep in this bed in weeks. But still, I felt nothing at this thought. And not a numb nothing—a nothing of peace and clarity and detachment. Good nothing. Happy nothing.

Smiling, I stretched my body out wildly like only one person had room for in a queen sized bed. Happy.

I bounced of the bed semi-gracefully and was then fully slapped by the cold temperature, having taken off Matt's shirt and only being clad in underwear. It didn't bother me though, I felt almost repellent. However, I unfortunately wasn't entirely impermeable so I wrapped myself in a blanket.

With a skip in my step and to the drum of the pitter patter of rain, I went down to the kitchen for a drink of water. I was by no means hungover, simply thirsty. Hungry too.

When I got to the tap with a cup in hand, a mug caught my eye in the drying rack beside the sink. I placed my own down and took a closer inspection of it.

The mug had a wonky handle and sunken in sides. It was a misshapen, speckle glazed disarray. Because it was the first and only mug I had made years ago when I begun playing around with pottery.

I presumed it had been hidden in our crowded cupboard of mugs as I hadn't seen it in forever. Though, the fact that it was this mug in particular didn't phase me, but the fact that it was cleaned in the first place. That Matt hadn't let it sit dirty all day for the leftover coffee to stain and engrave it's thumbprint into the ceramic.

"Old habits die hard," I muffled under my breath. And I think I understand Harry's knack for change now.

I finally filled my cup up with water after putting the deformed one back in the back of the cupboard.

If Matt was still here, I had no clue of where as I couldn't discern a single sound. Regardless, I didn't mind, so I went to sip from my cup on the porch.

The rain beat against the ground with no greater pressure than my shower head. It was simultaneously soft and hard enough to be cleansing.

I ran back inside and hurried up the stairs to throw on a shirt and pants. I came to a complete halt, however, at the sight of Matthew through the sliver of space in the cracked door of the bathroom. His hands gripped the sink as he watched himself cry in the mirror.

Pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders, I approached cautiously. "Matt?"

Standing behind him, I viewed the two of us in the mirror. Him with blotchy cheeks, partially obscuring my body, and me with crestfallen features that maintained a gleam despite current circumstance.

He cried harder at my presence. He sobbed.

I sucked my lips into my mouth and tried think of what to do. I only had one solution that wasn't really a solution at all.

His vision followed me as I escaped the room. I walked back down to the kitchen and gently placed a pot on the stove, gathering the items to make homemade hot chocolate. Taking my time, I added all the ingredients and stirred them to the best mixture I could muster up after years of little to no practice. Only childhood memories working as a guide.

When I was finished, I poured the hot chocolate into a plain, ordinary mug and left the rest to steam away on the stove. I strolled back up the stairs, hearing him wailing, and went into the bathroom calmly.

He didn't even look at me when I came in on my tip toes. But he didn't need to. I could see all the regret and hatred and disappointment in the reflection of his eyes in the mirror, his pupils solely concentrated on his own. I noted how that was new—the hatred.

I put the cup down the counter and some of the liquid spilled out over the lip of the mug. It splashed right onto his hand, and I knew it had burnt his skin because it just came off the stove and was billowing steam.

He didn't wince. Neither did I. In a way I assume we both didn't care. I didn't want to see him hurt and felt guilt for spilling it at all, but the difference between this day and every moment entangled in Matt and Ev, was that I used to want to soothe the pain. I wanted to be the one to bandage him. Now I just wanted to walk away.

I almost did. But right there in the threshold between the hallway and bathroom, I'd never felt so much like my mother.

So I stopped before my toes could touch wood and dressed a much more scalding wound than the burn. "You're not your father, Matt."

I don't know if I ever saw so much snot. And then so much blood. Very few times over the past six years with Matt have I seen his anxiety reach the pinnacle of intensity to where it triggers a nose bleed. Maybe once or twice. But there was never this much blood.

It was a consuming red. Everything was red. The counter, the mirror, the walls, the tiles. Red. The sink—overflowing with blood. Matt was one big blood clot, one big blob bleeding out before me.

Red, red, red. An indiscernible hue of red. Because it wasn't a single shade, it was the whole spectrum of the color. Mahogany, crimson, ruby, blush, candy apple, blood red. All of it whirling and spinning in a flat sheet over my eyes.

And I wasn't crying, I was just still. Staring at Matt's entire figure bleeding away into this all consuming red. Dying. Matt was dying and I couldn't even cry.

Then I blinked and the world of red hid into the darkness behind my eyelids, sliding up into my brain and disintegrating.

Matthew was back again in his normal ivory skin and bones, the only hint of red in the vicinity being the skinny stream down his cupid's bow. He was back clutching the counters with white knuckles balling his eyes out, staring at himself like a stranger.

"Matt?" I asked.

He didn't answer. The snotty blood was dripping into his mouth now and he wasn't trying to stop it.

"Matthew?" I asked again. This time his eyes flicked over to mine.

His hands tore away from the counter and his right hand then attacked his left. He ripped his silver ring off like he was yanking on a rope. And he stared me straight in the eyes as he did it, slamming it down onto the counter so it let out a screeched clang and yelped as it fell to the floor.

"I'm just like him," he said, monotone and his eyes bleary. Regret.

He rubbed the skin beneath his nose, smearing the blood across his cheek in streaks. Looking down at his hand, he showed no emotion, but I knew he didn't know his nose was bleeding until then.

"I'm just like him," he repeated. Hate.