I never cared for anyone so much. I was born with a bomb inside my gut.
Had she thought of what she might say to him should she see him again?
No, because in order to do so she almost certainly would have to acknowledge that his leaving had hurt her. She had wasted entirely too much energy on introspection in her life and had not felt any overwhelming urge to put forth the effort recently. She did not want to think herself capable of pain anymore. She did not want to admit that she’d put enough stock in him to be disappointed when he’d left without a word.
It shouldn’t have mattered to her.
Because she hadn’t mattered to him.
And what difference did that make in the end?
He’d made her feel small and stupid and she’d found some comfort in that. Because she had so often felt too big for her skin. Restless in some peculiar way. And he had reminded her of her worth – which admittedly wasn’t much – but he’d also tried to save her from herself for reasons she had refused to dwell on.
He speaks and she visibly shrinks, receding into herself. Stupid girl, she thinks. But she merely studies him as he moves closer to the river’s edge. There is something about him that is different, heavier, but she does not ask what it is. She merely watches him, wishing that she could summon up a kind of rueful grin. Silly thing that she is, she wants to agree but doesn’t. She just shakes her head and wraps herself in silence.
He says strange things then. Things she can make neither heads nor tails of at first. She draws in a thin breath and inches away from the edge. What does he know of drowning, she wonders. And wolves? She swallows thickly, her brow darkening with her confusion. She tilts her ordinary head and narrows her gaze at what she can see of his profile from where she stands behind him.
“What?” she asks, quiet, the voice breaking clean down the middle. Her eyelids flutter heavy. “What does that mean, Brigade?”
lilian
