cinisin (cinisin) wrote in reprisys, @ 2021-05-24 00:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | cin, winter |
love and control
who: cinnamon & winter
setting: activity room
Freedom was the feeling of zen that came with being out of her incredibly uncomfortable jail cell and into a slightly better, but still too industrial dorm room. Or well, a dorm room for someone who had to be in a dorm at a public school, or something equally tragic. But that was fine. She was zen. Totally zen.
Winter took a deep breath and adjusted her hair one more time in the mirror. She looked as put together as she could with knock off designer wear, but at least it was in the right fashion. Pinks and pastels and matching accessories. Almost like being a budget version of herself. Still, she couldn’t be choosy. She was doing better than that nasty orange jumpsuit that clashed with her skin and her hair. No, she was at least in the appropriate color palette now.
Raising her chin like the proud woman she was, she let herself out of her room, taking in a deep breath of the fresh air, and looked around. Two guys sat on a picnic table in the courtyard, but neither seemed interesting to her. Not yet. No, no boys. She was done with boys. The last one she had loved, so purely, and then he’d turned on her for that witch and she was not going down that route again. No more. She was an independent woman.
Lifting her chin once more she scoffed at the young men who could never deserve her and took herself down the little balcony towards what she assumed was some sort of common room or elevator, or anything other than a dingy looking courtyard in a mediocre motel.
Cinnamon had gotten up super early. Her energy was spiked through the roof having finally woken up here, and so she’d wanted to explore immediately. She threw on a vintage looking sun dress, something that one would have found at goodwill. it was mainly white with little tiny faded flowers all over it. Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail with a ribbon, a matching one around her neck. She looked adorable. But then, one thing that Cin was good at was looking adorable. She would have to really try to pull off anything but that. So she leaned into it. Her feet were bare, having abandoned her sandals somewhere in the courtyard earlier to feel the grass out there beneath her feet. She was standing on a countertop, going through cabinets when she heard someone else enter the room, and she whirled, one hand bracing behind her back to keep herself steady (and conceal the paint brush she’d broken the end off of to make herself a shiv.
Just because the place looked like it wasn’t prison didn’t make it so. She saw a pretty blonde there though, who didn’t look like an immediate threat, so she quietly slid the shiv beneath her brastrap in back, to keep its presence hidden. “Hi,” she greeted, waving with her now free hand. “...what’s up?”
Winter canted her head to the side a little, looking at this girl that could be competition, but no she wasn’t going to do that again. No more boys. But! She could make a new friend. “Hi yourself,” she greeted back, looking around her and taking in the little activity room. It kind of reminded her of the one her friend Louise had at her mental hospital, but that was besides the point. “Just, getting acquainted with the area. Why are you on the counter?”
"Because I'm short, and don't like the idea that I don't know what's up on the top shelves," Cin said with a shrug. "So far, nothing fun. But if we get the urge to relive kindergarten art class, we got the hook up right here." She sat down on the counter top, letting the heels of her feet bounce against the cabinet doors beneath her. "I'm Cinnamon, Cin for short," she said, wondering if she was gonna get recognized.
“I’m sure it’s part of the therapy,” Winter said, trying to sound positive. Because positivity. The name, and that face, oh that face, it clicked. “You are, aren’t you?” she said, nodding. I’ve seen you, online.” Not that she’d totally followed their story, but she liked the idea of a love story that epic. Plus it was always popping up on her social media, if not the original posts then the edits. “What about your boy toy?”
“Not a boy toy,” Cin said first. Not harshly, but there was a firmness to her tone. “He ain’t no boy, and he definitely wasn’t a toy. I don’t know where he is, I wrote him about this place, but…” she sighed. But she still kinda planned on trying to escape to find him. With what they’d managed to accomplish together before in such a short time, she figured she’d work out a prison break. “What’s your name? What you in for since you already know what I’m here for, only seems fair.”
“Right, not a toy. Got it. So it was love? The real kind? I mean, the papers, they made it seem like he was grooming you or something and honestly, I kind of always thought it was you. I mean, come on, they think these men don’t do whatever we want?” Winter shook her head. “But love, like love. That’s something else.”
She shook her head. “Winter. And a misunderstanding.”
“The kind they write songs about and ram down kids throats in movies,” Cin confirmed. “Ride or die, that’s us. He wasn’t grooming me. He would never,” she insisted, even if Winter had already agreed with that part. She was used to trying to defend him, so couldn’t help it. Her head tilted to the side. “What do you mean?” she asked, curious. “You thought it was me?” And what the fuck did ‘they think these men don’t do whatever we want’ mean?
“Sounds gorgeous,” Winter said with a dreamy sigh. She wanted that. Why didn’t she have that? That bitch had ruined everything. “That you had him controlled, not the other way around. I mean, I get that it’s love, you said that and I believe you, but what man could not want to do whatever you wanted him to?”
Cin's eyebrow rose up, smelling Crazy on this one. She quirked a little half smile. ""Course," she said, to see how far this girl would take it. "I mean, men, they can't have three consecutive thoughts that aren't crashed and burned by thinkin with their dicks," she suggested. "Not their fault, but they need someone with their hand on the wheel." It was the complete opposite of what she felt, but she was curious about this girl's world view.
Winter nodded. “They just need guidance,” she agreed, sitting on one of the chairs in the room, then making a face. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as it looked. Figured. She shifted, finding a proper pose and nodding. “My…” she flinched a little, then powered onward, “my ex, he was just...lost all the time.”
"Is he part of the 'misunderstanding'?" Cin watched her shifting around, still fully relaxed, herself. "What kind of lost? And what happened?" She kinda had to know now. She was hoping for a juicy, trashy ID network kind of story.
“Yes. He thought he should start seeing that tart and he had no idea that she was just a gold digging bitch. I was trying to help him.” It wasn’t her fault that that bitch called the police. “She thought I was trying to kill her and didn’t seem to realize that if I had, she’d be dead. I was just trying to explain that she wasn’t right for him.”
Yep. ID network at its best. "Of course," Cin said, nodding solemnly. "How did you try to tell her? And was he with you when he started seeing her? Two timin you?" She asked. Damn, that whiff of Crazy she got had been holding out. There were whole buckets.
“He didn’t think so, but he was, like I said, lost.” She made a face at the how, but maintained her story. “I informed her that he belonged to someone and she didn’t believe me. So I tried to scare her. That was all. She walked into the knife.” Not at all true, she’d brandished it and slashed it, but she was defending her relationship and her own honor.
Cin kept nodding, things lining up in her head about it all. Guy in question was a possession, right. Fit well with the controlling aspect of things. she kept listening. Her eyebrows both popped up at the ‘she walked into the knife’ bit. Riiiiiight. She watched Winter, then a little slow smile curled at the edge of her lips. “C’mon, it’s just us girls. She really just walked into a knife? You can tell me. I mean, it’s not like I can judge, right, with what I’m in for.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It was a misunderstanding.” Though Cin was right, she was in for something worse, and she had no place to judge. “I was defending myself and my relationship. It’s not my fault that they believed her and not me.” Much to her and her parents’ lawyer’s dismay.
Ah, standing firm on her story then. Must need to keep the illusion alive for herself. “So, what was her story then? What did she trump up?” she posed, to keep Winter talking. She still wanted the story, so however this girl needed to tell it, she was game.
“Gold digging hussy,” Winter blurted before she could compose herself. “We were in love, he knew, I knew it, she knew it. She just thought she had this chance with him, because we’d had a misunderstanding, so she tried to move herself into his house. I told her. He belonged to someone else and she was barking up the wrong tree. She said I was crazy.”
Cin nodded. Yep, damn. Where was popcorn when you needed it? “What exactly happened between you and your man? What was the misunderstanding there?” she asked, sympathy toned into her voice. Listening to the story, Cin could feel the edges of her scars beneath the thin fabric of the dress she wore, the bullet she’d taken for Cal, that had gone clear through her and embedded in him.
Winter’s shoulders fell, sad little frown slipping onto her features. “He was lost. We were so happy, but he just said he needed space, which isn’t the same as breaking up, and he let himself get ensnared by that tramp. He really didn’t know better.”
Cin nodded, then put her hands down on the counter top and hopped down. “So, here’s where I call bullshit, honey,” she said to Winter, slowly walking closer. “What you’re talking about? All fuckin’ horseshit. Love - real love - it’s got nothin to do with control. Men, they aren’t poor dumb creatures who can’t control themselves, and anyone who tells you that is lying. Real love isn’t control it’s trust. I wouldn’t be hunting down some girl who got with Cal, he would have made his choice - because that’s it. This guy, whoever he was, he made a choice. It just wasn’t you. He wasn’t confused, or lost. He wasn’t into you. But I could have walked in here and caught you buck naked on the floor with your holes greased up and aimed directly at him with ‘I belong to Calev Haddid’ tattooed as a tramp stamp and I still wouldn’t have batted an eye. I might not have seen him in a long time? But he loves me. He wouldn’t touch you. Wouldn’t even be tempted. But if he did want you? Well, I love him enough to let him go, too. Because people aren’t possessions either. Real love, it isn’t someone being there because they feel like they have to be, or because you make them, or because they’re some toy. It’s because they want to be there. Because out of all the people in all the world, you’re the one they’re choosing to share their heart with.” She stopped just before passing Winter, looking at her. “But you wouldn’t know nothin about that, would you? Cuz all you are is a psycho bitch ball of violent insecurities trying to force some poor schmuck into whatever fantasy is in your head. With a nice rack.” She braced herself in case Winter tried to take a swing, not sure what she’d do.
Cin might have thought herself as high and mighty with her ridiculous chatter, but Winter knew better. So while she had a flicker of disappointment that the girl had led her on, she didn’t do more than that. Her features otherwise remained calm, at least until Cin was done. “It really is sweet,” she said, voice sympathetic in a way that didn’t really sound all that sympathetic. “That you think that. That you really believe he wouldn’t do that to you. You’re young though, so it’s fair.” She shifted, getting up and smoothing her dress. “I do hope you get what you want,” she said. “But you won’t. You’ll learn though, they need our help.” She smiled, then turned on her heel to walk back out again.