It feels staged—like a play where she is meant to fall in line and carry out the movements that no longer belong to her. It feels hollow and wooden and the emotions that rage in her chest nearly tumble to the ground in an empty clatter. Instead, she holds them close, tucks them into her further, and keeps her gaze steady on him. She would not be weak in this moment, she thinks. She would not crumble before him simply because it was difficult to face your demons. Because it was difficult to walk back into the fire.
She is pleased that she can maintain eye contact.
That the sound of the woman’s name on his tongue, of their son’s name, does not send her spinning.
“How lovely,” she croons in her familiar rasp, swallowing anything that would cause it to shake. When he asks of their children, she rolls a shoulder—intentionally ignoring the first part of the question regarding herself. “They are adults,” she says cooly. “They are wild and smart and living their own lives.” She knows Reia is as self-sufficient and cruel as she had been as a child, Nikolaus as distant and introverted, and Villanelle as much her own person as the first two. They are perfect, to her, but not hers to own.
When he rushes headfirst into what he had clearly come here to say, she stiffens slightly, taking a step back out of instinct more than an actual reaction. Her foot grinds down though and she doesn’t turn on it. She grounds herself and forces herself to listen to his apology—to the words so difficult for him to say.
“I would hardly call myself perfect,” she says, nearly dismissive. She has no desire to be idolized or for her edges to be softened. She knows there are those who would have handled the situation in a better way than her, and she feels no regret for the mistakes that she made. “But you’re right that you were an idiot.” This is sharper, her silver eyes leveling with him, studying the man who had once been her home.
She feels that rush of familiarity in her chest—the burst of warmth.
She bites down until she nearly tastes blood and ignores it.
“Things can’t go back to what they were,” her voice is quieter, almost soft. “You know that, right?”
she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed
@[Castile]