[ 02 - CHAPTER TWO ]

― a cavern for a core ―

There was a pen.

Carolyn supposed that was how every story began - with a pen in hand, a blank sheet of paper sitting before it. No. Not sitting. Churning. The white was seething, always furious at the pen and never forgiving in its absence.

It was one of those vicious cycles, where the effect was the very cause of itself in the first place. If the paper had not been so full of rage, if it had not transposed this rage vicariously into the fragments of the pen, then the pen would not have been so fearfully reluctant to meet it. The pen would have met the paper, tip kissing the snowy fibers, and the snowy paper's fury would have been soothed. Yet, the cycle ensued, and there was no touch that would sooth the white fury.

In this lied Carolyn's problem. She couldn't write her story, because in every inch of her lived a wariness of this cycle.

It had been nearly a year since Bucky had left for boot camp. Since he had been stolen. Once two more months slipped by as they always did - slowly, gratingly, and without remorse - she would have lived her entire year of age twenty-one without Bucky in it.

So, there she sat. Pen in hand. Blank sheet of paper sitting before it. Churning. Simmering.

Her story lay there in her fingertips, painting the insides blue and yellow and an array of sundry colors as it festered. She meant to write this story down, to record it, and yet she simply sat. An hour passed, and then two, and she still sat, discovering other ways to occupy herself. To distract. She cleaned Steve's room, as she often did since moving into Bucky's old space with Steve, and then her own. She took a walk, and even found the time to bake.

She knew she could not convey her story to Bucky in this way: with her pen being frightened of its own counterpart, her own core behaving in a way that mirrored it. The pen would tremble so long as she fretted over writing her letter to her friend, and so long as she fretted, the paper and the friend would both grow irritated.

Her eyes drifted across the coffee table that sat in front of her, and the cycle ensued. Her gaze was met with bills, as usual. But it also found the company of three letters, all sent months ago by a Mr. James Buchanan Barnes. All unopened.

The rest consisted of advertisements, notices of engagements sent by distant friends and family, and a single letter sent by Ruth Levy. Junk mail. She would likely never touch - or open and read - any of these. Steve would eventually grow tired of seeing them, and he would toss them in the garbage can.

There was a knock at the door. Speaking of Steve.

Steve didn't wait for Carolyn to open the door for him. After all, it was his apartment, too. He gave Carolyn a grin when he entered, pushing the door shut behind him with a gentle click. He hurried to Carolyn's side.

"So," he began, and Carolyn could tell from his pressed lips that he was trying to contain his excitement. "Are you ready?"

Carolyn frowned for a moment, forehead wrinkling in her brief moment of concentration. She couldn't remember exactly what she was supposed to be ready for. Of course, she would never admit it until the moment that he remembered. She rarely saw Steve so excited anymore. At least, not since Bucky left. The two of them had been twins in that respect, resigning to a state of apathy but for sparse moments where it faded in light of temporary excitement.

Steve reached over to toss a pillow aside, making himself a place on the worn, threadbare yellow sofa. He opened the leather-bound folder he held, flipping through pages of sketches and cartoons until he evidently found what he'd been searching for. He held it up: two brown squares of paper, bold print glaring at Carolyn as if to scorn her for forgetting.

"I already bought the tickets for the eight o'clock showing," Steve announced, proudness gleaming through every syllable he spoke.

Carolyn's shoulders fell. "Oh, Steve, I'm so sorry. It completely slipped my mind, I..."

The light in Steve's blue eyes faltered. The twin skies that rested there skimmed over Carrie's outfit, quickly forming a stormy blue from the ideal midday one. She knew what he was noticing. In her forgetfulness, she'd forgotten to change out of the burlap-toned shirtwaist dress she wore for work, her waitress apron still tied to her waist.

"Do you want me to wait for you to change really quick?" Steve's voice was hopeful, but only half-assured.

"I don't think I have it in me to go out tonight, Steve."

A huff of air found its way out of Steve's mouth, and he reached forward to drop the tickets on the table. He scratched the back of his head. "You're moping again."

Carolyn felt as if the very skin around her chest was crawling, the ligaments and muscles inside wrestling with one another. If this was moping, then she wasn't sure that 'again' was the right word. She couldn't mope 'again' if she'd never stopped in the first place, if most seconds of her day were spent relishing in the squirming in her chest, and in lifting the weights that sat not only on her shoulders, but on her heart too.

"Yeah, I am moping." The words left her with a rush of wind, reaching Steve's skin with a sting. Carolyn squirmed. She hadn't meant for the words to sound so cruel. Yet, most days, she felt as if she could not afford anything but cruelty. The weights inside of her forced away any remnants of a warm persona.

"Carrie," Steve said, and Carolyn started at the sound of his voice. It held no scorpion's pinch to match the one she'd given him. Rather, it was the whisper of a ladybug's wings as it flew past an ear: of an entirely different species, and an entirely different nature as her own.

He grasped the paper that had been sitting in front of Carrie for the last hour, likely reading the sole word that was imprinted at the top. Bucky.

"Carrie, come here." This time, the flutter of his wings was met with the landing of a ladybug on a tree. His arm settled around Carolyn's shoulders, light but just substantial enough that she would never be able to deny its presence, not even in her subconscious.

Carrie shook her head. She didn't want comfort. She didn't want someone to hold her hand, or someone to show her the direction of the path she should be taking, like a child taking its first steps. She was a woman, not a child. Her hands should've been grappling through rock on its own, feet firm and certain as it maneuvered a road through the mountain set before her.

Even so, a child's cry escaped her. It scurried off before she'd had the chance to stop it, first in a cough, and then in a torrent of tears and spiteful sobs. She tried to push it down, to hold the child back and put her in the corner, demanding that the woman come out and mop the floors of the liquid mess the child had made. But she couldn't.

Minutes passed, and she still couldn't, until Steve finally mumbled, "We can watch a movie here, if you'd like. I can see 'Fantasia' some other time."

"No." Carolyn shook her head, rubbing at her tear-stained face to no avail. "No, I'll go with you. Just...I don't know what to say to him."

"You haven't written him a letter yet?" Steve's words were still soft, still fluttering.

"No."

Not since he'd left. In a whole year, Carolyn hadn't found it in her to write Bucky a single letter, despite the three that he'd sent to her. He'd stopped sending them a handful of months ago.

The two sat there in silence, and Carrie's mind wondered once more. She hadn't written to her best friend, choosing instead to not acknowledge the cavern in her chest that was starting to reek. The putrid smell grew the more she ignored the disdain that nested there, the scorn for Bucky's departure and her failure.

She found that it was easier to move through life as if there were no real emotional consequences or responsibilities. She'd been saving for two years to be able to afford admission to the local university, and the application period had come, only to pass just the same. All ignored by Carolyn in her embrace of a negligent mindset. She never visited her friends anymore - only the one she lived with, and even then, she hardly talked to him. Rather, she left for work at the diner and returned to the confines of her room, exiting only when Steve began to beg.

Yet, she did not know the remedy for a cavernous heart, so she plugged her nose and walked on. Despite the growing fumes, she walked. She'd never known that a distant friend would feel like her own soul was distant, too.

Steve sighed, rubbed Carolyn's shoulder one last time, and stood to his feet. "We'll get ice cream after. And then when we get back, I'll help you write that letter if you'd like."

Carolyn nodded: "Okay." But she still sat there, her shoulders too worn to stand up when the weights still rested there.

"Come on, Carrie." Steve held his hand out, a grin plastered on every piece of his face - his eyes, his lips, the points of his cheeks as they lifted. "The whole world is waiting for you."

She scoffed, but a laugh was hiding between its airy layers. "Since when is the theater the whole world?"

Carolyn rose to join her friend.