a.n- this was hard as hell to write. any feedback would be much appreciated.

Ivory- White spews over everything, in every shade and texture imaginable, the perfect color for her coming wedding, and it occurs to Chassidy Wellborn, that the only thing colored ebony within yards, is her heart.

Bittersweet- Memories flooding back through time, remind her of all she once held, and how eternity isn’t always spent with the one you love.

Possessions- Chassidy had many materialistic, useless baubles, but none of them amounted to half of what the fiery redhead had, and nothing ever would.

Love- It came to her only once, wrapped in femininity, shrouded in secrecy, and weighted with enough passion to blow the blonde’s mind, again, and again, and again.

Beginnings- Tennessee Evans hadn’t always held Chassidy’s heart, but from the very beginning, the girl had enough intrigue around her to captivate Chassidy for the rest of her life.

Bond- It grew between them so strong, that their world’s became perfectly synched; footsteps, heartbeats, and breaths all came together, as if they were simply one single complete soul.

Blind- They couldn’t see everyone else could, to them, they were merely best friends, but to the watching eyes of the world, every graceful movement was alarmingly symptomatic of love.

Fear- Chassidy couldn’t remember the exact moment the lines between friendship and romance became blurred, but she could still feel the fear from the first time she felt the urge to kiss the younger girl.

Denial- Chassidy tried to hide her heart from Tennessee, but there came a time when, with a whimper and tears, she let every corrosive word topple from behind her tightly closed lips; spilled arsenic on paper.

Balance- Holding perfectly still, they balanced high upon a tightrope; a void to the left, a void on the right, they both knew they’d eventually fall, but the direction and the outcome were utterly unknown.

Labels- Neither girl had ever considered themselves as anything other than perfectly straight, that is, until with three whispered words, their lips met.

Struggle- Being together wasn’t ever an easy fight; living in a small, closed minded town only escalated the persecution to an almost unbearable degree.

Anger- Word of the girls’ relationship eventually reached John Evans, and filled him with an anger so white hot that it could have melted the mid-June sun.

Iron- Tennessee had never given much thought to death until the night her father’s half empty fifth of Jack met her skull with a force that left her to regain consciousness in the early hours before dawn, wearing a myriad of new bruises.

Danger- When her dad enlisted her brother, Robert, to help with the pummeling of the “family queer”, Tennessee finally realized there was nothing but danger on her horizon.

Hitch- Tennessee never wanted Chassidy to know, but something, a sadness in her celery green eyes, told the older girl there was a serious hitch in the plan.

Refuge- Chassidy flung open her front door to find her girlfriend soaking wet and crying; Tennessee didn’t care how she looked, she just wanted to feel safe again in her lovers arms.

Intimacy - It wasn’t in sex, it was in the kisses that Chassidy laced over Tennessee’s bruised stomach; a band-aid over wounds that would never heal.

Pact- Chassidywas forced to promise to keep Tennessee’s hell private; a promise, that with each passing day, grew heavier upon her heart.

Salvation- As things got worse, Tennessee found that, there where nights when Chassidy’s voice was her salvation, other nights, she was just too weak to pull the trigger.

Desperation- Chassidy could taste it in Tennessee’s eager kisses, in the way she drank her in like water-- her every deafening scream for help choked silent against the older girl’s lips.

Panic- Emma Wellborn had let it slip to John Evans that his daughter had been sleeping at their house, and when his eyes lit with a strange fire, Emma couldn’t help but recognize the tiny flicker of panic rising up in her chest for her daughters best friend.

Call- “Chass, I love you so fucking much baby, I’m finally leaving Hell, I’ll see you soon.” Tennessee’s voice was too pulled, and tense at the same time, something about it left Chassidy’s stomach feeling uneasy- she found herself desperately wanting to heave.

Crash-The sounds of metal twisting inwards against tree bark and screaming pierce the night-time silence, and Chassidy wonders if it’s the soundtrack of Tennessee’s death she’s hearing, or just the reiteration of her own.

Procession- Chassidy watched the hearse roll by from her second story window; she had decided seventeen was entirely too young to witness strangers bury your other half.

Deeper- Chassidy kept quiet about her loss, letting each swipe of the razor bite deeper, the streams of crimson screaming truth for a girl who had lost her voice.

Assurance- Chassidy told herself she would never love again, it hurt too damn much, and besides, heaven had her heart.

Lost- Time is what Chassidy lost, six years she’d given up to the past, yet she wished sometimes, that she had possessed the gall to take herself out of the picture long before anything had slipped away to start with.

Shaken- When the shaking started, Chassidy thought she was going crazy, then she realized it was just her mom pulling her back to the present and the wedding she knew she shouldn’t go through with.

Passing- The weeks slipped by, a blur of planning and parties, and things that Chassidy was only half there for, she couldn’t help feeling like a caged animal; everyone was always there to watch her, but no one could ever see how she longed to be a part of a very different world, no one saw her break.

Visitor- When John Evans stepped through the door of the church with a letter in his hand, Chassidy swore she was seeing a ghost; blinking only proved that the man in front of her was indeed flesh and bone.

Apologies- John could have said he was sorry for what happened until Hell froze over, it wouldn’t bring Tenny back, he knew Chassidy would never forgive him; defeated, the man laid the crinkled envelope on the table before Chassidy, and left without even the ghost of goodbye to linger in his wake.

Revelations- It was written in Tennessee’s neat hand, and splattered with her tears, just the I love you’s and forever’s that Chassidy had heard a million times before, but something else lay within Tennessee’s words, a realization that Tennessee knew all long, forever wouldn’t be hers to spend.

Angel-Tennessee had promised her she’d always be her angel, she wanted her to move on and live life and be happy; Chassidy didn’t think she could, but for Tennessee, she‘d dye trying.

Forever- Chassidy Wellborn promised that she would stand by Richard Johnson for the rest of her life, his wife, and he would die believing she loved him; Chassidy would dye knowing her heart belonged to a fiery redheaded girl, her angel, Tennessee.