Stealing Lavender: Chapter Four

Chapter Four

         Mara was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, a concoction that moved her entirely in whatever direction it pleased. She was what embodied the oceans while its surges rippled her to and from, leaving her with the disillusionment of control. When unmedicated, which she preferred, those moon-pulled swells ravaged her tempestuously until she was aimless and sated from the fight. Her relationships with others waxed and waned by this, boundary lines carried away in the crests of it all.
         Her mania was often tainted by an irrational fury that was unfixed and battle scars from unnecessary wars overran her body, mnemonic with stories of regret. Like a malicious man in the dark, it lingered until her temperature rose again, and stole her away to realms she feared she would never return from. But she did, and when she did, she wrote passionately of her time in the abyss. It somehow made it all worth it.
         In her great absence, she wrote to Lavender. Mara wrote her burned letters and crumpled short stories that would often offer a sense of peace and recognition, a remote twinge of amity. Even with Lavender folded back deep into the ether, Mara chose to believe that she was still with her somehow. She had been swallowed by this loneliness that felt as constant as it was just, because in eras of immense solitude, our minds can ease and reflect on the mirrors we have placed around us. Mara still latched her eyelids quick when it came to this; the opportunity to open yourself, to freely give yourself into isolation.
         Perhaps this was why Lavender was so unattainable; a complex dragonfly whose wings grew strong enough to fly with spirit guides and angels. Mara would selfishly attempt to pluck her from the clouds, her grasp never tall enough to pull her back down to the earth. Lavender’s music man caught her greedy seizing once, the clutches of her dark love flailing. He laid Mara on her side, asking her to bite on the wooden spoon of her turmoil. It bent backwards with a seething magic as he held onto her tightly,
         “I need my books returned to me,” Mara cried effortlessly, her illness in a whirlwind.
         “I need her to understand what she has done to me. I need -” He breathed into her,
         “I know what you need, but your books are gone. And so is she.” He told Mara how Lavender had left him and he promised that he understood. He understood how the ache transforms from a prick and into an entire mutiny of the body, felt at every turn in the bend of ourselves. He was a kind man and comforted her for far longer than Mara had deserved then. Another fury formed in her soul for him, for herself, birthing a biting hate that Mara pointed directly at Lavender. A wrath meant for all the dark crevices that Mara’s true enemies hid in, veiled from the surface and taken to the bottom, where perversions might be forgotten. The brain is a force and when in reckoning, it may do whatever it takes to protect what surrounds it.
         When she felt like being found, Lavender surfaced like a body in the sea. The stormy waves rolled over her, a blanket of holes meant to reveal her all the more. It had felt clandestine, mythical, when she finally appeared to me. Her voice was lithely and almost a tickle in my ear,
         “I heard you were looking for me.” What small sanity I had then was cradled in frayed wisteria, its ethos escaping like a failed trick. My yessssss was too eager for anger and left resentfully as a hiss.
         “I am looking for my books.” She seemed elated by her own known fallacies, apologetic but firm in her stature. Lavender spoke about how her music man had told her of our encounter, the ordeal plain in sight and perceived by her, analyzed by her. This unnerved Mara, her untimeliness so hideous, raw, and yawning in Lavender’s grasp. She was as cornered as she had dreamt Lavender would be, so she could say nothing.
         “I’ve lost them but they will turn up. More importantly, how have you been? It’s been too long and I’ve missed you,” Lavender pressed on, anticipating the tension that had arisen. As quiet as sunlight lifting at dawn, Mara reluctantly whispered,
         “I’ve missed you too.”
         “I know, but tell me how you have been.” And we spoke for what felt like hours, bursts of spellbound traffic that made me feel like our vines of winter were healing and pulling themselves back together. I had forgiven her. My red balloon. She had gone on so far, a spectacle of endurance that left paths swept and facile. I wondered how she did that; made arriving and departing look so easy. Lavender listened as much as she insisted past the debris of my half-truths and barren oaths of repose. The insincerity left us both with the muck of it caked into our skin. Lavender was overwhelmed by a quivering plea to be cleansed.
         And then she returned to the sea without question and it swallowed her up as quickly as she had come. I stood before its gaping body, staring into the wake of her being washed away into another realm, my entire entity itching to be invited. If only I had been ready. We locked eyes to only quickly avert our gaze, somehow knowing – preparing, for all the great ways Lavender would grow to beset me. The water still waded where she left it, her absence like a broken compass frantically tilting its direction into every turn. It encircled me in its fringe, lathering me in salty sands that no longer knew her. And the void found me again, my oldest friend, who knew me better than I knew myself. It carried me from the ocean’s break and into the street, pointing me towards the reality I had chosen to keep.
         Mara resumed her melancholy, coming back to the only idea of home she carried, her fingertips stained with the inklings of the poetic faith Lavender left behind. Aiden smudged them away; their dwelling vast enough for his musings and his alone. There was a time long ago when he had made room for them both, but those memories obscured and were like sandpaper when you touched them. Mara remembered his roaring laugh that could make her jump from her seat, his spontaneity, his passion, and how haunting it was when he would sing. He was tall, armed with burliness that made Mara feel safe in the beginning. When it wasn’t being forced upon her, before he had strangled the ebullience out of her.
         While in a state of descent, Mara sunk into Aiden’s sway with vigor, a self-inflicted splinter that had been ailed into infection. He spun her into an oblivion where torment and disgust resided, and he twisted Mara into this creature whose face was unframed and its body detached. A mangled reflection of self-hatred, she turned herself inward, folding into herself like worn paper until she was barely seen. Mara grew quiet and stopped writing. Her voice was an animal that needed to be caged and he kept the key on him, for those grandiose moments when he desired her affections.
         He weighed his enormous fists against her until she was molded into less, her ferocity made tame by his fanatical strength and brutality. He bound her in ropes that would not fray and left her dinner electrified; a test she came to never fail until she had grown frail in his abuse. Thread-bearing, Mara had given away herself, pieces shocked and lying lifeless on the achingly cold floor. He was a student of Pavlov and the many manners to which he conditioned one to behave. And she was his bitch. She had become his, she belonged to him, and when he finally freed her, Mara’s arms remained at her sides as he choked the life out of her.