#this was literally typed in a rush sdkfljsdf there's probably so many typos

[photoaria]

after the fight / the week after self para.

The first night was the worst of it — Aria sat at the window for most of the night, watching the cars passing by and hoping each and everyone of them was the Porsche. By the time the sun started peeking over the horizon, she knew that it wouldn't just a be a few hours break and then the snap of her fingers to fix it.

The next day was spent managing the store, stocking books, helping customers, and the like. The monotony of it seemed to help take her mind off of things, but by the time closing time rolled around, she was right back in her head again — wondering if it would be another long night of waiting by the window. Instead, though, she found solace in cleaning the kitchen spotless. By the time she realized that it was almost dawn again, she'd taken all of the cleaning supplies out of the pantry and set herself up sections to reorganize and scrub down every inch of space she could find.

It was a days long project in between managing the store, checking her phone obsessively, and watching out the window to see if she could catch sight of Autumn pulling back into the home. The radio silence was the worst part of it, looking down at her phone to see a big fat nothing - or thinking she had felt it vibrate in her pocket to, again, see absolutely nothing waiting for her from the one person she wanted to hear from. Every night, after work and cleaning for a couple of hours, she would curl up on the couch and either doze or flip through the dozens of streaming sites before settling on yet another Stephen King movie to hopefully try and jar something in her mind.

It was Tuesday when she made it to the bedroom, the closet still exactly like Autumn had left it. She started on the opposite side and worked her way over — only stopping when she caught sight of a box and some journals laid out. It was definitely an invasion of privacy to pick one up and flip through to see what was in it, but one of the poems was so obviously about her or about the situation that Aria found she couldn't put it down.

what if? what then? i don’t know what to do soft looked good on me, please don’t ask me to look good in that dress again

Sitting down and making herself comfortable, Aria flipped through until she found the very beginning of Autumn's journals.

The quick peek into her childhood mind left Aria laughing at just how young she sounded, but as she flipped through the words, she found more and more evidence of just why Autumn was the way she was. The mentions of her mother, the mentions of her college fling, all the way up until she'd met Aria —

She had to stop after that, needing to take a break from the bombardment of information that she felt like she should know. A break to feed from the bags Autumn had gotten her a few days before she left ( The supply was running low at this point, which meant she'd need to feed or find her own bags. Both would be a challenge. ) and she paced around the apartment, wondering if reading further would be too much or if it would help her try and make sense of what their relationship used to be.

She brought the notebooks into the living room, set them on the coffee table, and stared before muttering a quick 'fuck it' before grabbing it again. If anything, it would help her understand. Maybe Autumn won't be upset about that, about her trying. So many snippets and bits of poetry about her eyes, about her face, about the way she dresses and snippets of her time with their other friends: Kevin, Morgan..

Her breath caught in her throat when she read another poem titled 'infatuated by her'.

thinking about how if i want to taste heaven i can just think about dream about wonder about the way she kisses

And another titled 'party dress'.

i used to hate the way fabric hugged my shape but the way she looks at me makes me realize i was wrong

Aria chewed at her lower lip, bringing blood forth once more and traces the words with her fingertips. Does she look at Autumn the same way she used to back when they were first talking? Or was it entirely different now, that she'd had to start trying to feel whatever she felt before from scratch all over again? Clearing her throat and swallowing back the frustration at her situation, she reads further about the confusion from bites and bruises and though she doesn't remember biting her or feeding from her — there's still an overbearing sense of guilt that washes over her.

The longest entry yet is about Autumn finding out about her being a vampire, and she sits through it, chewing through her lip all the while. 'I hate being lied to.' 'It's driving me insane and I want more of it.' She heaves out another sigh, goes back into the depths of Autumn's psyche — all the beautiful and fucked up parts of it she isn't sure she's supposed to know about. From the revelation that she's a vampire to the werewolf bite to the.. Oh.

i hit her i feel so fucking miserable but then she kept just pushing me and pushing me and so i hit her again and again and again

Aria swallows down blood-flavored bile, sets the book down and sits back against the bed and stares up at the ceiling. Was that why she reacted to Autumn's anger? Was that why the argument was so difficult to get through? Every argument? She reaches a hand up to push her hair back and run the hand down her face, fingers catching on her skin and dragging it down until the hand drops to the floor. The information she'd been bombarded with by reading these is almost too much to handle, but she still hadn't reached the most recent stuff — the things that Autumn had said, had thought, about the memory loss about who she is now, she has to know. Privacy be damned.

She devours every single word, stopping to breathe and cry as she learns more about her pseudo-not-quite-girlfriend in ways that she knows she'd never have a chance to learn about her through the woman's own mouth. The final, most recent entry has her stopped completely in her tracks. Aria stands, leaves the books on the coffee table, and leaves the apartment. She needs to think. To feed. To be.

By the time she returns home, she feels a little less shell-shocked and much more sated. The journals are ignored in favor of a shower to wash the blood from her face, hands, and torso. As the warm water turns to pink in the tub, she silently promises to herself that Autumn will never be alone again, not if she can help it.