Hearing Eilidh’s quiet statement about her mother, Leander wondered whether she was the reason the mare hadn’t left the water. Not yet – not when memories drifted more clearly in the languid currents. Not when they were so close that you could almost drown in them. And while something in the way she said the words struck a chord with his own sadness, he couldn’t help but agree. “It is beautiful.” He smiled, too, though reliving the past like this would take its toll on them both, in one way or another.
Perhaps he hadn’t fully considered what it meant to have found this place until she posed her question. Perhaps he’d been avoiding it. He gave a slow shake of his head, blonde mane tangling as it fell against his damp neck. “Not exactly,” he confessed then, the truth of his own words striking him silent as the water swirled around them – and when he looked down he could see that the clouds had cleared in its glassy reflection, for the stars were there in the river, shining in vast constellations as vibrantly as if he had actually flown among them.
“We were meant to find it together. I guess I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that they’re gone.” He had to look away, away from the stars that seemed so near even though he knew they were beyond his reach. “They’re gone, but somehow I’m supposed to go on existing without them.” Leander hadn’t meant for his own floodgates to burst forth, but suddenly he can no longer contain the ache of their absence, especially now that he was here – he was here, and they weren’t, and nothing was as it should have been. “They were my home,” he said, and he had to close his eyes against the sudden sting.
He would never hear his dad’s reassuring voice again. His mother’s lips would never form another sunbeam smile. Never again would he feel the way the very existence of their love had steadied the earth beneath his feet – grounding him, giving him hope and direction and purpose. They had found one another, and they had held on. Through everything, they’d had each other. Yet without them to hold onto now, what was he meant to do? Without them, who was he meant to be?
Leander tried to clear his throat, attempting to push past the overwhelming longing that came over him and failing miserably. The sound of the river seemed impossibly loud now, for despite the water’s gentility there was a rushing in his ears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, simply, his brown eyes averted from her – sure that his obvious emotion would have unsettled her by now.
