My tears poured out of me and he drank them down his throat.

He drank them in gulps deep into himself, swallowing sorrow.

"Someday," he said, "when we are ready, I will give you back your tears."

-Echo
Francesca Lia Block

make me real

by miss aerith

--

(--she didn't belong anywhere.)

--

I

her mother knew she was different the moment she escaped her body. her body opened up like a heaving flower; her voice silent among the rivers of red and water; her hair bright like the blossoms; her eyes green and wet.

she didn't scream. she touched; she reached, she grabbed her mother's hands with her tiny petal-flower fingers and the mother looked into her and found her speaking to her in whispers that came from her little-beat-beating heart.

'am i a pretty baby, mama? i'm here.' she seemed to whisper it as soft as the wind; with her heart-voice; and kanna knew she loved her. Sakura, she named her, and she stared up into her soft cotton-candy downy head; like feathers, like angel-wings that were starting to spread out.

--

'she grew up strange,' kanna always said, sipping on the fifth glass of vodka, looking into the glass of silver-fire and forgetting about angel-heads and pink-hair, forgetting about moist green eyes that always looked like they were crying. the man beside her shifted on the sheets, the smoke hot and thick like fire in her veins.

'she's your daughter isn't she?' he asked her once, and she smiled a little smile that's as bitter as the candy-sweet fire that burns spark-hot down her throat. 'she looks too much like him, y'know, cheating bastard,' and she watches the liquid swish greedily like a tide around the glass. he's quiet, and he should be because she did her job, didn't she?

--

II

she's a fairy-child, with little legs and a tiny body; with the same moist-green eyes except they're shadowed by cheap make-up she buys at the store, filling her bag she purposely splattered with paint with revlon and maybelline, gem-colors, gem-stones like magic talismans that gleam emeralds and pinks that match the tattoo-image of her face. her hair was short now. when her mom came home with words actually in her mouth instead of moans, she handed her fifteen dollars and for a second fingered the strands of pink-cotton hair, as if trying to remember the angel wings and tear-drop eyes.

when her hand drops, sakura's breathing becomes shallow, and her eyes suddenly become dry. she asked for a few inches, but the man was too busy staring at her with wonder, at the little plump lips, the pale face that gleamed like snowflakes in the light, and he spoke to her softly.

you're a fairy-girl, you are. could be bald and you'd still look like a flower--

he chopped it a few inches below her chin.

she wept for it bitterly.

ino laughed.

III

she walked in on her when she was sixteen. she was wearing checkered vans and the same tight jeans that were still somehow too big on her lithe little legs that were as pale and thin as cream-covered icicles. she heard moans, like growls the reminded her of the huge snakes and demons that visited her in her dreams, dragging her down with fanged skeleton kisses. but skeltons didn't have pink hair, and they didn't have foggy blue eyes that were always caught between remembering and forgetting.

her mother looked at her, the cheap smear of her makeup cascading like ink down her cheeks, like spilt paint that didn't clean up right away in art class except sakura never paid attention in that class so it didn't matter--but she remembered looking at her blankly, at the splayed flesh and tanglement of limbs; and walking quietly up the stairs.

'ino?'

'took you long enough to call. we're heading out at seven.'

'okay.'

'something wrong?'

'nothing, let's just blow this shit.'

as she reached for the zipper of her jacket, she stared curiously at her breasts, wondering exactly what was so fascinating about them that made her mother able to find enough pleasure to forget her completely.

IV

when she dances, she likes to drink herself silly. she likes to blur her little body and pretend it's something more. she winds around the bigger bodies like clay, easily molded and easily formed, so soft and fragile, --(angel wings)--she forgets about ino and about the lady with the cloudy blue eyes and she forgets about her little wings, that she's positive have shattered and crashed, like crushed flowers to the multi-colored floor. and as she locks lips with a nameless face, she's pretty sure that another feather just fell.

--

through the crowd she finds him.

the lights were playing across his face, and the word comes to mind so quick and so soft from her lips that she drops the hand she was holding, (whoever it was) so small, so little--

angel--

she read about them, she still does. she reads about angels, real angels, with calm faces and beautiful bodies and wings that shine like the sun, wings that somehow she knows her mother believed her to have. (gone, gone gone) she walks towards him, slowly, stumbling, marveling in the cold perfection of his face, like a sheet of perfect snow, soft not yet fallen on with writhing bodies desperate to cover up in creamy-white. or how dark and black his hair was, like spilt ink,but the kind she saw on old writing, the kind where you still wore old clothes, clothes that were soft and tied with bows..

'dance with me?'

he looked at her, staring at the girl who wore a little gauzy white dress, her upper body covered with a pink and red-striped jacket that looked like a candy-cane gone wrong. she tilted her head and smiled at him, although she seemed more like a child than anything else, with her big-green eyes, (they looked like they were crying.) she gasped, her breathing like a puff of white snow, because his eyes were gorgeous-pretty-beautiful, the kind she remembers looking at in in books where they told about lords and ladies and demons and angels--(angels,angels,angels), they were slanted, as if painted by charcoal, the irises splashed in perfect circles that were perfectly hypnotizing, like the eyes of a god.

'more here for a friend--'

he replies, and she smiles because he has a deep voice, not a husky one, not a moaning one, not one like ino that got higher when they drank too much or took too much, but one that cool, like a rushing waterfall on the bottom of the rocks. she blinked childishly, before saying sweetly, the lights reflecting her eyeshadow that glowed like slicked cotton-candy.

'you don't know how.'

he blinks at her curiously, but to her it was more like two luxurious bats of his thick-black licorice eyelashes.

'--i'm trying not--'

she grabs his arm, and he curses, but to her it was music.

he fumbles and trips but suddenly she transforms into something beyond a something. she became the dance, she twisted and weaved around his body, it wasn't ballet, it wasn't pop, it wasn't anything at all but it was everything. the lights fell on their forms, his slowly moving with her, trying to keep up, and hers, head thrown back, pink-hair lit like spark-hot lights and her glittering mouth wide and inviting.

the dance ends, but she wasn't finished.

V

they were outside the club. she's still small, still little, with baby-shoulders and her jacket falling off her body, but she's panting, her skin glinting like diamonds and her lips bruised from her teeth biting them so hard.

'you're perfect. what's your name?'

he stares at her, and he forgets about his own life, with his own brother, of perfection and pretty mother of encouragement, and his father who frownsfrownsfrowns--because from the look of the girl with ripped jacket and the smell of blossoms and alcohol, she has neither.

'--we're not going to meet again--'

'your name, silly. i'm sakura.'

'--sasuke.'

' no last name? s'okay. in the world, my own name don't really matter either. i'm just a pile of shit on the road, if you know what i mean.' he would have corrected her, that he was a uchiha, somehow that stood a chance in the world if only by looks, name, and money. something about the sight of a girl with frayed pink hair and moist green eyes smeared with too much make-up but oddly beautiful was painful.

'..this is the part where you say, nice to meet you, yes, i'm a real person sakura, i didn't imagine you--'

he stares at her, with her tear-filled green eyes and her cracked voice, like broken rose petals. she wouldn't survive in the real world, probably five years from now she would still be on this same street, dancing wildly with her moist-eyes and her crying voice, that although was so bright and happy it screamed, 'save me, i'm cursed'.

she stares at him, with her broken lips and eyes. 'i want you to kiss me.' she whispers quietly. 'because if you're real, maybe you might kiss me back, and maybe we might make love but maybe not. because real people only do that, and statues can't because they don't exist. or maybe you're too much of an angel.'

he tells her that he's sorry, that he can't, and he doesn't say that her pleas are different from the girls that throw themselves at him like cheap-perfume, but that tears his heart a little, and for a moment she thinks that she can see something in the cold eyes, so frozen, stiff.

she gets closer to him, her breath like silk on his neck and her little white arms wrapped around his body, taking a shaky breath, taking in the expensive suit, the tie, trying to hear a heartbeat and trying to find a life in the empty eyes. he doesn't say anything, because his arms are slack, and she smiles as she whispers,

'someday, you'll become real. i'll breath life into you and you'll become a real person.'

a few tears fell onto his shirt.

when he asked her why she was crying, she didn't say anything, only whispered,

'because this is the closet to heaven i will ever get. after all, angels aren't here forever.'

VI

she went home that night, looked up everything she knew about angels. she spoke softer, tried to tame the long strands of hair that hung in front of her ears, and lay limp swept across her forehead. she read it hungrily, devoured it, stared at her hands and smiled as she realized with total cheerfulness submerged in utter hopelessness.

sinner.

she tried to wear less wild clothes, and when she went to school and boys that remembered her weaving around them at night forgot entirely about her at day. ino still offered her a stick now and then and she would take it, but she decided to suck more on a lollipop on most days because if she did, maybe when she could kiss him and make him real, she might taste entirely of blossoms and light and not of sin and failure.

because he's perfect, and she was not.

--

she found him again on the beach.

he was sitting under an umbrella, and she was curious because angels liked the sunshine and the last time she checked didn't angels embrace the sunshine? she stared at him curiously, saying, 'didn't know you liked the beach. but i thought angels liked the sun.' he stares at her blankly, with his lifeless eyes and she quietly sits beside him. she tells him about her life, about her mother, who told her she had angel wings but then once her father walked out decided she was a cursed thing, and cast her away, or about how she found her sleeping with men when she came home, or about how ino wasn't really her friend but she went to parties because she liked dancing and helping people forget about things when she danced.

'what about you?'

he stares at her blankly, and says nothing.

--

he's silent, he doesn't say much, doesn't tell much, but she comes to visit him at the beach anyway. she tells him stories about a little girl with angel wings who wanted to dance for the sun but the sun was too bright and she got burned, or how she fell in love with a frozen angel that forgot how to talk and to love, and when she asked him if she could dance/make love to him, he said no.

he didn't say anything to her, instead looked ahead with his blank black eyes, like pools of ink and she smiled as she continued, telling about the mother who lived in an apartment of kisses and moans and whose daughter had to make her own lunches and her own dinners and her own way, and had to look out for herself. Sasuke still says nothing, but quietly places a hand on her head and gently pats her, and when she feels him touch her, she feels like she's fallen into angel-heaven, with the lights and everything, and as she looks into his beautiful-cold-god eyes, she thinks maybe there's something growing.

VII

'i'm engaged.'

she looks at him, with his hunched shoulders and his fancy school uniform, that's black like him and dark like him but he's still as white as an angel and her breath kind of stops in her throat and she stops sitting in his lap and instead looks at him with her baby-girl eyes and whispers, 'why?'

he shakes his head and says it's arranged but he kind of almost smiles sadly at her and fingers a piece of her pink hair and whispers that he is no angel at all, and tells her she's annoying and that she should try to get a life better than the one she has now, because he is no angel and he cannot save her.

the sunset was cold and hard on her back, like warm glass shards cutting into her skin with blood like tears that were sprinkled all over her face and she was a mess. she stood and stared at him with her quiet eyes, that were moist and hurt and broken and she smiled a little sadder as she gently fingered his cheek and says, 'now your wings are clipped. don't worry about me, because i'm a sinner, i'm a failure. i just liked sitting under your wings, that's all. even if i couldn't get you dance. or kiss me. '

even if he never made love to her in a million years, she still thinks it would have been okay if he just sat beside her and let her quietly bathe in the beauty of his silence.

when she comes home crying with tears on her face her mother is sane and strokes her hair whispering, 'sorry baby, ' and sakura thinks her voice sounded like a broken old music box, tired of playing the same old song.

she doesn't tell her about the boy and the beach and the dances and how he never ever kissed her.

she doesn't tell her that she thinks she's going to have to say goodbye to an angel.

--

the next day he doesn't come to the beach.

she sits there for a moment and then she cries a little, because she's back to being dirty and lonely Sakura, without her angel-Sasuke who was never really hers, but was still something so utterly beautiful that she pretended he was. when she finds the umbrella though, with the empty mat where she would perch child-like between his legs, a note.

'maybe i'll fly someday after all.'

she cries more for himself, because she really wanted to see him fly with her.

VII

She's nineteen.

She left her hair still gum-bubble pink and sometimes in her classes, she would paint the tips of them yellow while scribbling pictures of her angel-boy in the margins of her papers. she's finally in college, not a big college, but enough, since her mother somehow finally decided to look at her child with her wide-sad-baby emerald eyes and then cries because she remembers her angel hair and her white-skin and her soft silent voice as she entered the world with her tear-drop eyes.

she's going to be a dancer.

she's going to become something else in front of all sorts of people, not in the way of colored lights and broken glasses, but instead under one big light with just one big stage and one little form bending and weaving around nothing and creating it out of something broken. something beautiful. she likes to think that maybe if she dances enough her angel-boy might come back free, might come back real.

IX

She's twenty and she's tired. Dance practice is hard on her little girl ankles but she's still the best in her class and her tests are really hard, and she can't read as well as most people but she's trying, and her teachers loved her for it.

she still sometimes dreams about him, with his sad dark empty eyes that begged her to make him whole. she sometimes dreams about the demons in her sleep but most of all she thinks of him and his lonely voice that she hardly heard, but sometimes could find in the blackness of his eyes, gently telling her, gently promising her, one day we'll meet again.

X

She's on the bus. She is twenty-one. She doesn't have enough money for a car right now because lessons are taking all she has. She runs into someone on the subway and the face she thinks she's seen before. She almost drops her bag of study-books because the man is looking at her intensely behind this thick cascade of dark-ink hair, and there's something familar about his lips because they look like they don't speak often.

--

she runs away.

--

'sakura.'

she's afraid to turn around as she runs blindly from the bus-stop,
the stars on her back and in her eyes and in her tears.

'sakura.'

she dreamed of him saving her but she never dreamed of him saying her name. she didn't dream about what it would sound like. instead she just sags, feeling frozen by the deep and trembling sound of the voice. she hears foot-steps, turns, and he's there.

her angel-boy. her frozen angel. her sasuke.

she looks at him with broken eyes, seeing that he's alot taller, alot more frightfully beautiful, and he tells her in a voice not often used that he broke it off, and he's not going to get the inheritance and his older brother is five times better than he is but he doesn't care because--

'you cried to me. all the time. you danced into rose-bushes with thorns and every night you bled in my dreams.' he tells her softly, and she steps away from him, and he looks at her pleading at her: still in her dancing shoes and tattered gray skirt, still in her white tank-top and her over-used gemstone eyeshadow, with her glossy-star lips.

'--i think--i think i love you--'

he tells her, and his black-ink eyes are shining, and she's afraid because she thinks he's almost alive. he's almost human. she steps towards him and whispers,' i wanted to find you. but you left me. you weren't ready for me. you're supposed to be my angel, but i couldn't make you real and i couldn't make you stay.' and he pleads with her in his eyes.

'it wasn't the right time--now it is.'

and as sasuke kisses sakura, it's more than candied-fire explosion-flavors, it's your favorite bubble-gum and it's flowers-opening, it's something dying but something living, and it's five-times better than buying cheap clothes with ino at a thrift-store or studying alone in a one-roomed dorm and it's even better than beaches and sunsets.

it's the two of them finally becoming alive, fully human and fully whole.

-end-

just something to take my mind off my other story, Inside Her Mind. (She pimps her stuff. :3) Totally inspired by Echo, an amazing book you should read. A little different, but hopefully you liked it.

Please review, tell me what you liked about it. Even :) are amazing.