OOM: Neptune, California.
Aug. 30th, 2006 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
watching_youWhen the door closes behind her Veronica immediately turns back to open it again.
She shouldn't have let it shut, she tells herself, she should have kept it open. She wasn't ready to let go. Doesn't matter about that stupid clock - something would have been done, she shouldn't have left, she should have waited -
But she didn't, and the door, when she opens it, doesn't lead to a bar with a view on the end of the universe: it's just a closet, pure and simple, dirty t-shirts and shoes she hasn't worn in years. She stands there for a long moment, low on options, realizing that she's walked into a cliché.
(This is the first day of the rest of your life.)
No more Lilly, no more cheating death. No more worlds apart from this. Just Welcome to Neptune, enjoy your stay. You can never really leave.
Veronica sits on her bed for a while, watching the stars, and how wrong does it feel that they're so still, so dull. After all the skies she's seen she's almost unaccustomed to the fact that most nights aren't filled with dancing, and in that back here the lifeless black swallows more than its share of the sky.
Keith enters, after some unmeasured stretch of time, and puts a hand on her shoulder.
"Are you okay?"
"Just thinking about Lilly," she says, and it's not entirely a lie.
"Oh," he replies, and touches her cheek. "You're crying."
And so she is. She hadn't noticed.
She doesn't let it get her down, but it's through sheer will: she goes to work, shops for school supplies, makes as complicated a dinner as she can manage with what she's got, doesn't slow down. She does everything she can think of not to dwell on it, and keeps telling herself, this is a normal day, this is how things were before, this is what you're used to. Even then she doesn't really buy it.
Every door lets her down.
It's evening at last - Veronica returning from her weekly chore of taking out the garbage - when she finds one, and almost cries right there in the courtyard. The way the door creaks at her, it seems to say, oh ye of little faith, and then more kindly, you can come back, if you like.
"Thank you," she says, to no one. And without waiting any longer, she steps through.
She shouldn't have let it shut, she tells herself, she should have kept it open. She wasn't ready to let go. Doesn't matter about that stupid clock - something would have been done, she shouldn't have left, she should have waited -
But she didn't, and the door, when she opens it, doesn't lead to a bar with a view on the end of the universe: it's just a closet, pure and simple, dirty t-shirts and shoes she hasn't worn in years. She stands there for a long moment, low on options, realizing that she's walked into a cliché.
(This is the first day of the rest of your life.)
No more Lilly, no more cheating death. No more worlds apart from this. Just Welcome to Neptune, enjoy your stay. You can never really leave.
Veronica sits on her bed for a while, watching the stars, and how wrong does it feel that they're so still, so dull. After all the skies she's seen she's almost unaccustomed to the fact that most nights aren't filled with dancing, and in that back here the lifeless black swallows more than its share of the sky.
Keith enters, after some unmeasured stretch of time, and puts a hand on her shoulder.
"Are you okay?"
"Just thinking about Lilly," she says, and it's not entirely a lie.
"Oh," he replies, and touches her cheek. "You're crying."
And so she is. She hadn't noticed.
She doesn't let it get her down, but it's through sheer will: she goes to work, shops for school supplies, makes as complicated a dinner as she can manage with what she's got, doesn't slow down. She does everything she can think of not to dwell on it, and keeps telling herself, this is a normal day, this is how things were before, this is what you're used to. Even then she doesn't really buy it.
Every door lets her down.
It's evening at last - Veronica returning from her weekly chore of taking out the garbage - when she finds one, and almost cries right there in the courtyard. The way the door creaks at her, it seems to say, oh ye of little faith, and then more kindly, you can come back, if you like.
"Thank you," she says, to no one. And without waiting any longer, she steps through.
