Most days Anaïs could handle her secrets. Today she could not. Her stomach ached with loss and took sickening lurches in waves that left her breathless. On the high wire on which she seemed to walk her feet seldom faltered, except on days like today. Aware of the ever-present magic, the magic that was written in the palm of her hands, she knew if she fell from the giddy heights she would always be caught. Unseen protectors on the ground waited with an elaborate safety net, worried for her safety and bound to break her inevitable fall. But still the fall scared her.
On days like today her hands shook as the memories overcame the present. The smell of ripening tomatoes in the glass house, Severin's words swirling in through grey wires 'handcuffed in lace blood and sperm, swimming in poison, gasping in the fragrance, sweat carves a screenplay of discipline and devotion', and the heat that had seared those words into the clay landscape that would shape her life.
Anaïs wondered if they could see the gaping hole where her heart should be. She knew too well the careless man who had stolen it and shoved it in a glove box with an unpaid phone bill and a spent lighter.
He told her that she shone too brightly, that no man was worthy of her sole undivided attention. What a terrible thing to say to a person, thought Anaïs, and the words had scarred her and made her more lonely than she ever thought possible. And it was an enduring loneliness. The kind that comes back in the nights, no matter how bright the days are. He had made her unreal, a statue to worship, and his words had turned her to stone.
This secret, one of many, seemed too heavy to bear today. One man's cowardly adoration had made Anaïs ashamed of the magic in her life. Resentful of her gift. As it was she felt the need to be punished, maybe even hurt.
She filled her dark nights with pale lilacs, giant seashells sat like empty hands in corners of her home, the smell of faded Spider Lily, the inky black eyeliner, the bass lines. The wind had told her to smile and forget though it knew, as she did, that she could not.
Anaïs hated Mondays.