all our searching, adna

[adna]

I will commit my soul to your door tonight, and I'll last 'til the gas fumes float on higher

If only they could go back to the beginning.

If only she could reverse time so that she had run right by him and they had never stopped to talk. He had not asked the kind of questions that made her introspective and furious. He had not pushed her until she had felt the only source of tension release was to leap and press her fangs to his throat.

But she knows she would never take it back.

Would never take back what had existed between them.

What they had created.

But, gods, it hurts now to watch him and pretend that she feels nothing. She wishes that she could just lose herself in the anger that usually came so easily. She wishes that she could just rage at him but there is no spark within her and she feels only that empty, looming cavern—echoing and fierce.

The sadness in his voice rings of pity and she shakes her head as if she could stop.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she manages and is amazed that her voice does not completely crack on the edges. “You were honest with me from the beginning.” She forces herself to study his face and forces herself to strangle the need to walk closer to him, to press into his side—even if only as friends.

“You told me that you couldn’t love me.”

She wishes she could make it sound lighter, but it falls heavy on her tongue and she has to break her gaze and look at the ground, focus on the breathing that comes so unsteadily. Seconds pass. Minutes, maybe, but when she looks back up, the curls of her forelock falling to the side of her face, she puts every ounce of effort into looking composed, into not looking like the insides of her are curling away like aged bark.

“I really hope that you guys are happy,” she forces a smile. “I really, really do.”

in a dying love I'm nothing but a stone cold liar but, oh, I got an iron in that fire

Adna