The skin that she touched is still burning; it’s alive with the memory of the feel of her lips, as though she had traced lines across her flesh in black felt pens to map out all of the ways they knew each other once. And this piece of her wonders if she ever dared to connect the dots, to draw out the lines of her burning skin, if she would look like constellations – if she would become a perfect mirror for the things that they have seen, and the things that they have said. Would it bring her to tears?
Because she is close to them now.
Because she is not as wicked as her words pretend to be.
She wants to be, or a part of her does. She wants to be a volcano. She wants to be an earthquake, and tear the world at its seams into halves. She wants to be as strong as she sounds when she says ‘I loved you, once,’ but all of her resolve so quickly turns to poison in her gut. It splits her in a bigger way than the vivisection did. It splits her in a bigger way than anything ever has.
Would the constellations spell out her regret?
Because she wants to turn her cheek. She wants to look across her shoulders, and see her dark eyes looking after her. But she left first. She said, ‘I loved you, once’. She said goodbye.
And then something happens to pull her out of constellations and ‘what ifs'. She almost laughs. She almost laughs, and then there is this sudden flash of teeth and her neck coils back like a snake before it lunges. She can’t believe the audacity – that when she is a volcano spewing fire and ash and hate, Cordis crawls back. Even if she wants her to. Even if she slows her steps on purpose, just in case she might. Because this is what they are. Because they are made of half-truths. Because they cannot be together and they cannot be apart.
Because they don’t know how to end even if it’s the only thing left that they need.
Because she wants to curl up in her anatomy. Because. Because there are a thousand reasons that she can fathom in the fractions of seconds. Because. Because if your heart is willing then there are a thousand reasons that you can create to make things appear the way that you want.
But it isn’t Cordis.
And the lines of Spyndle’s face soften. And then her eyes grow bigger, because the disbelief in them feels too huge to contain. “Perse,” she says, because there aren’t words that exist inside of her to say what she needs to say, because there aren’t words existing like that at all.
“Are you real?”
She asks, because she is not as wicked as her words pretend to be.
spyndle
you are the prettiest thing that I will ever know