Holly Jackson

Real men wear floral when trespassing

She stayed there, clicking through for hours, jumping from article to article, comment to comment. And it was with her too, of course. It always was.

The gun.

It was here now, beating within her chest, knocking against her ribs. Aiming with her eyes. It was in nightmares, and crashing pans, and heavy breaths, and dropped pencils, and thunderstorms, and closing doors, and too loud, and too quiet, and alone and not, and the ruffle of pages, and the tapping of keys and every click and every creak.

The gun was always there.

It lived inside her now.

nd asked, ‘Do you like bunnies too?’ They were each other’s crutch to lean on when life got too much to carry alone.

To Mum and Dad,
this first one is for you.

And yet, history’s greatest minds always advised bold over safe; their words good padding for even the worst ideas.

The people you love weren’t algebra: to be calculated, subtracted, or held at arm’s length across a decimal point.

But sometimes remembering isn’t for yourself, sometimes you do it just to make someone else smile.

They were each other’s crutch to lean on when life got too much to carry alone.

Cara’s wasn’t the face of a best friend; it was the face of a sister. It was home.

There was a song in her. A sickly beat troubling the skin on her wrists and neck, a crackling chord as she cleared her throat and the jagged trill of her breath.