After a session with her razor, Missy usually felt peaceful. At the very least, she became more focused, able to handle the overwhelming emotions and thoughts that had driven her to the blade. Sometimes, that sense of peace would extend into something almost rapturous and she'd feel as if she had seen the face of God. Other times, she was left with a simple feeling of quiet, of warmth and solace.
This was the first time she had ever felt bleak.
She rocked on her bedroom floor, the lights off, the door closed, her arms wrapped around her knees. A gray lump sat in her stomach, a wretched stone of guilt that crushed any semblance of peace. She had wandered out of the land of Too Much and set up camp in Emptyville. Tumbleweeds blew in her chest, and she breathed the dust of abandoned buildings.
She had wanted to hurt her sister. And more than hurt—she had wanted to feel her sister's face beneath her fist, bruise her knuckles on her sister's bones. She had wanted to draw the Sword and make her sister scream. She had wanted that so very much.
She didn't know who she was anymore.
Melissa Miller rocked, alone in the dark. And she despaired.
***
At the dinner table, Missy and Sue didn't speak to each other. Missy, for that matter, didn't speak at all. Their parents chatted for a bit as they served huge slices of steaming pizza out of the box, while the girls sat in strained silence. But after ten minutes of discussing various work-related projects, their father tried to draw Missy and Sue into the conversation. Neither sister complied. Finally, he asked them why they were, as he put it, "in a snit." Sue pointedly refused to answer; she picked at the vegetables coating her slice of pizza, took sips of water, and didn't look Missy in the eye. For her part, Missy sat slumped in her high-backed chair and stared at the cooling food on her plate.
"Girls," their dad said, "come on. Talk it out."
No response.
"I'll help negotiate the Miller Peace Accords," he said gamely.
Nothing, not even an eyeroll from either sister.
Their mother sighed as she reached for another slice. "Look, we understand that sisters sometimes need to be mad at each other." She leveled a significant look at her daughters. "But I wish it wouldn't be at the dinner table."
Missy knew a cue when she heard one. She scraped her chair back and grabbed her plate.
"Melissa," her mom warned. "You weren't excused."
"You don't like how I'm acting at the table. So I'm going out." Missy marched out of the dining room before her shocked mother could respond. She dumped her uneaten pizza into the trash and shoved on her sneakers. As she walked through the living room, she heard her sister say, "She's out of control."
If her parents had any reply, it was cut off when Missy slammed the front door.
She walked without purpose, her feet dragging. It wasn't until she felt a gentle bump—so very unlike her sister's two-handed shove—that she realized Ares was walking behind her. She turned to face the warhorse, and she managed a smile as it nuzzled against her shoulder.
"Hey," she said, scratching behind its ears. "Hey there." She swallowed thickly. "You don't have to keep me company. I'm okay."
The warhorse's ears flickered.
"Really,Ia m."
The red horse nuzzled her again. Its intention was clear: it wasn't leaving her side.
"You're a good steed," she said, her voice breaking. She threw her arms around Ares' neck. "The best," she whispered, hugging tightly.
They stood there for a time, a girl and a horse, each taking comfort from the other's presence. And then the girl climbed up onto the horse's back and the two went out into the night.
***
They moved among the humans, invisible, weaving through their lives. Missy hefted the Sword, but instead of urging people to violence she sliced through their pain, working as she had just yesterday in a desert land. She bled them, and hope closed their wounds. Agonies—over money, over love, over all the things that make people doubt and hate themselves—slowly eased from Missy's steely touch. Small wars ended, if only for a little while. Tomorrow, people might once again lash out at one another, might allow their wants to dictate their needs. But for tonight, they settled down, content with their lot. For tonight, peace reigned.
But even as she cut away the red lines of fury that kept people in a stranglehold, Missy herself remained trapped in a quagmire of gray.
Eventually, Missy tired of wielding the Sword, so the war-horse brought her home. She thanked her steed for the company and gave it a farewell pat. And then she went inside her house.
Her father told her she was grounded. Missy didn't care.
Her mother told her she could talk to her, that she could say anything. Missy didn't care.
Sue avoided her. Missy didn't care.
Alone once more in her room, Missy stripped off her clothes and sat beneath the black-and-white poster of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean that hung on her closet door, and she ran the pads of her thumbs over the scars on her arms, her belly, her legs. Tomorrow was Monday, and she'd have to face the aftermath of Adam's public betrayal.
And she didn't care.
War can be a tragedy, said a small, still voice. But you could be something more.
She let out a bitter laugh. How could she be something more when she didn't even know who she was?
The Sword reverberated in her mind, clanging like a death knell. YOU'RE WAR.
Melissa Miller wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come.