// just a little //


*

whatever you're looking for // don't come around here no more



She pulls on a cap, slides on some sunglasses, and yeah, it's cliched, it's the uniform of the celeb-in-hiding, but she's beyond caring. "I don't give a fuck," she hisses at her reflection in the tinted window of the car, drawing out the last word until her chest is tight and breathless, a tiny thrill snaking through her belly at the ugly twist she sees pulling at her lips.

"Fuck," she whispers again over her shoulder as she reverses out of the carefully-paved driveway. Fuckfuckfuck. Over and over, like some bizarre and twisted crazy-calm mantra, a stream of words that stops only briefly when she slips a hastily-lit cigarette into her mouth. Smoke and ash curve against the roof of her mouth when she breathes in, and something so fucking bad for her voice shouldn't make her feel so much better, but somehow, it always does.

She drives until she can no longer recognise the street signs, which doesn't take all that long. Turning the wheel randomly, a left turn, a right one, then left again, passing houses and yards and kids and dogs, and just maybe she could do this forever. For the rest of my life, she thinks, and yeah, somehow that's not such a bad alternative. Just driving and smoking and swearing, and nothing familiar to hold her back. Once, she'd thought growing up and getting older meant more freedom, but now she's not so sure.

Then there's a lot she's not so sure about anymore.

*

Twenty minutes or two hours later, and the sun's slunk lower in the sky, an orange-gold flare in her rearview mirror, distracting and glarebright even through her sunglasses. She waits for a break in the traffic, then pulls over to the curb. A quick hiss-flick of her lighter, and another cigarette she'll probably regret later. Not now though, because for now she lets her head fall back to rest against the warm leather of the seat, shaping her mouth into a perfect O to blow a series of lazy smoke-rings.

Justin taught me how to do that.

She frowns, and the quick touch of her fingers to her left wrist is automatic, almost instinctive. She pushes aside the silver bracelet she's wearing, and there-just below the curve of her thumb, is a tiny, inked teardrop-shaped tattoo. Britney closes her eyes against the rush of memory-- switching on the TV to see a poor man's version of herself standing under a cascade of water, suddenly feeling like she'd been doused in an ice-cold bucket full of it. She'd still been staring at the screen long after the final images had flickered away, and when her phone had buzzed, she'd screamed a little, and the high, helpless sound of it had scared her.

"I meant to call you-- well, before," he'd said, "before you saw it. I'm sorry."

She wouldn't let herself wonder if he meant it or not-- not then, not now. She still doesn't know, because she never once asked, not even when everything inside her was screaming out to do just that. He'd sounded like he was a thousand miles away, and she knew then that even if they were in the room together, he'd sound the same. Even if he was pressed so close that they were skin to skin, his fingers spanning her waist, his lips against her neck, he'd sound exactly the same.

"The girl looked like me." She'd said it quietly, not really thinking, and it wasn't until the very instant the words slipped from her tongue that she'd realised it was true. He'd been silent for a moment, nothing but his breathing down the line, and she'd wanted to take the words back, to swallow them all back down.

Until he'd said, "Maybe just a little," and then laughed-- the sound of it pure and clear and strangely cruel, and she'd felt something deep down inside shift and twist and break forever.

She flicks the barely-smoked cigarette out of the car window, watches the soft drift of ash that falls from it as it leaves her hand. There's a tiny teardrop on her wrist, and she'd been half-stupid on tequila and self-pity the night she got it done. It'd hurt like hell, sweat and blood and pain slicing razor-sharp through to the bone, and afterward, she'd barely made it out of the door before throwing up. She traces the inked outline with the nail of her pinky finger, tastes salt and lime and tears, feels the ghost touch of cool tile against her forehead. The sting of the needle into her flesh over and over had felt like the sharp prickle of the tears she's still holding back, and she blinks, once, twice, taking slow, deep breaths until her vision clears again.

She won't let herself cry him the river he asked for-- this one tiny teardrop is all she's willing to give.

*

It's near-dusk by the time she starts the car again, and the earlier steady stream of traffic has thinned out. She drives with the window rolled down, throwing the cap and sunglasses on the seat beside her. A warm breeze against her face, and something that tastes a little like freedom at the edge of her memory.

She stops once, at a Starbucks tucked away at the end of a strip mall. Not many people there, and her hand pauses above the cap and glasses for the barest of moments. "Fuck it," she says softly, and leaves them both where they sit, smiling as she locks the car door.

The guy serving takes her order without a second glance, and she leans back against the counter while she waits, brushing a stray lock of hair from out of her eyes. A soft touch against her elbow startles her, and she turns to see a woman watching her closely.

"Excuse me," the woman says, and she's smiling, "but aren't you-"

"No." Britney shakes her head, reaches across the counter for her order, handing over some change. She holds the woman's gaze for just a moment too long, and then looks away. "No, I'm not her."

The woman steps back. "I'm sorry," she says. "It's just. You look like her, you know?"

Britney looks up, meets her eyes again and smiles, because she's got nothing to hide. Not anymore. "Well, maybe," she says softly. "maybe just a little."


I don't feel you anymore // you darken my door // whatever you're looking for // don't come around here no more

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