Oh, so dramatic—Litotes feels dramatic, wishes he could eat every single word that just came out of his mouth. He can’t help the way Starsin draws out both the hardest and softest sides of him, can’t help that his emotions go from high-flying fury to depression in the trenches. They war against each other, French and German soldiers muddied and terrified as bullets fly past. Blood spills and eyes roll back. The French, depression embodied, drop like flies in their rain-soaked bunkers, while the maddened Germans creep closer and closer.
Starsin drops her bombs, and the anger bursts like a heart attack in Lie’s chest.
Stay out of her sight, he thinks derisively as Starsin holds his gaze for a beat too long. The way her eyes grew cold and the way she can’t break away from his face told him otherwise, told him that she misses the Litotes that made her laugh when she was alone. Satisfaction wants to ease his mind, but the spite wraps cruelly around his tongue.
“Coward,” Litotes spits when Starsin turns to leave. Fog swallows her whole and all he can think is She can’t even face the consequences.
Lie feels nauseous as he distantly watches the thick mist his once best friend left him for. He wants to cry, not because he regrets the name-calling (not yet), but because he genuinely thinks whatever the pair had left just went up in flames. Maybe I should go after her, he thinks absently, incapable of fully grasping the idea. Maybe I should tell her how much I still care, that thought being the one to jerk him from his reverie.
Lilt appears before him, beautiful silver eyes glittering with tears that long to fall. He briefly thinks she would be pretty even when crying, tears leaving streaks that would glow beneath the moon. The way she gazes with the innocence of someone incapable of hiding what they’re thinking . . . Lie’s heart falls from his chest. He admires that, the way she betrays who and what she is without a thought. He envies it, even as he wants to tuck her to his chest and tell her how sorry he is. Even as he is reminded of the way his stomach spun when they first locked eyes.
“I know,” Lie murmurs, not because he knew Lilt would follow him, but because he doesn’t want to leave her here as much as she doesn’t want him to leave. “But I don’t think I am welcome in Sylva,” he whispers, heading drooping just enough that his gaze breaks with Lilt’s. Lie wants to draw closer to her, to touch his nose lightly to her cheek in a sign of contrition. “If you want to . . . spend time together—” he doesn’t know what to call it, not yet, “—I need to tell you what your mother once was to me.” Still is, he thinks, though he immediately realizes that is not true. They are different now, very different. The only thing they truly share is their desire to know what could have been.
“We should stay the night here, though,” Lie concedes. “I’m tired. And I can tell you what happened when we’re settled.”
as it softly glides across your back
and i hope you leave right before the sun comes up
so i can watch it alone
