fiction reveals truth that reality obscures [jessamyn west]

x

She always thought that it would be all about her and how fantastic and awful and incredibly heartbreaking she was back when they weresixteenandinlove.

She is only part-way correct.

x

He writes her like she is the lamb.

Golden and gorgeous with the dreamy legs and the wickedly luscious wave of blonde hair. A smile that could halt traffic and a child's laughter that makes even the evilest of men stop and consider the lies spent on their martini stained lips. He falls head over heels over ledge in love with her and she trips and catapults and cascades [jumps] into his arms (and though it is the oldest line in every single book, story, piece of literature), and he rescues her.

He save[s][ed]her and made her his sun—everything revolved around him and her and that was the way it was supposed to be. She faintly remembers her silly girl of sixteen year old self telling her mother not to run away and marry his father because,pleasemother,weareforever and she still thinks from time to time if somewhere in a different world he is off and dancing away with what was left of her spoiled heart.

x

He writes her like she is the lion.

Ferocious and unforgiving as she planted one high heeled toe in front of him and shoved one perfectly manicured hand on his chest and told him to just fuckoff because she didn't need him. She is Serena van der Woodsen for Christ sake, never ever does she want nor need his love and it wasn't like she didn't do him a favor and sleep with him and whisper lies of full hearts and aching promises between fevered bed sheets.

He ruin[s][ed] her and made her the villain—everything revolved around him and her and that was the way it was supposed to be. She belongs at the top while he is meant to tumble to the bottom and deal with the garbage because in between loving her and spilling pages of imperfect prose, he is still Dan fucking Humphrey. And let's face it, what good is that ever going to be. Not good enough.

x

Sitting folded at cream colored duvet cover, legs curled up beneath her, hands shaking as she turns the pages and realizes that they are not sixteen anymore and the world [his world] doesn't revolve around her shatters her into a million shreds of what she is and what he turned her into.

(He is supposed to believe in her because the whole universe doesn't.)

x

She cries when he writes about Blair. Full on sobs and tear tracks marking a deep chasm of rivers and estuaries into her golden crisp cheeks, dying on the valley of her seashell lips. It sounds like all the elegant women in the universe compiled into this stunning array of a classy brunette beauty that sings tribulations on her tongue and could command an army with her eyes all while maintaining the grace of a dethroned queen.

Biting back jealous fits of rage, she swipes the leaves with such force that a sickening rip sounds as one hundred and fifty six goes by and she only appears as a troublesome footnote from here on out, contemplating whether or not they were [are] actually fictional prose or factual poetry.

x

Swallowing her pride isn't the hardest part.

It's sitting in front of him with his [tanned olive] hands and [cocoa] eyes and [half moon, makes time slow old movie style] grin knowing full certain that he doesn't love her anymore while she still thinks [hopes] that maybe one day they could prove everyone else in this purgatory of a city that they were wrong and forever doesn't have a hit on its head.

x

"But you were the love of my life, Dan. And I don't know. I…I guess I just thought I was yours, too."

That she even has to question it, standing there before him like some [not so innocent] saint with her hands clasped towards heaven and heart heavy the only way she allows it to be, sends her veins racing and probing and thirsting and his mouth is wide and no words are coming out and he is a writer and never gasps for truth.

In that moment, she wonders if she was ever that inspiring or was her worth all used up. (Was their love all used up.)

x

She finds Blair looking immaculate with her chocolate curls and pearly pink dress and peony satin pumps and begs for a rewrite. Because pleaseIknowthatIhavealwayshadeverythingbutyouhavetheonethingthatIonlyeverwantedtobemine.

And her best friend just purses her lips and crosses one demure [outlandishly classy] peony satin pump over the other and spins a fact that she had thus been ignoring so far as she threaded the inked pages of a three hundred million word satire of sadism and speaks.

"I told you it was fiction."

And she believes her.

x

Caving, she dials a number she knows by heart and his voice sounds like all the good familiar things that she cannot live without [warm honey, coffee with too much cream, the Loubatins from her eighteenth birthday, his flannel shirt around her shoulders, the taste of his smoky mouth, the feel of his skin on hers him, him, him] and he laughs and revives the sixteen year old girl that made him who he became [is, wants to be].

"Without you inspiring me from the beginning, I'd have nothing to write about."

x

For better or worse, she is the spark in his imagination that fuels the progress. And for now if that is all she can get than she will take it because without her, there wouldn't even be a story.

(But sometimes with her feet tucked into the cream colored duvet cover, hands streaming over his words of a once gifted Christmas tale of sixteen and true love about a girl that he met at a birthday party who he spoke to twice but never forgot and then they lived messily and completely catatonically explosive forever after, she giggles her child's laughter and tosses her wicked luscious mane of blonde hair and holds it close that he stole her heart and somewhere there is a happily and completely faultless forever after begging to be released.)