There will always be enough of him to miss.
This ache in her chest has a ferocity she cannot name, an intensity she has never known before in her life. It is a desperation that shames her, because it tells her if he leaves now, she will not survive the loss of him again, and she believes it. She tries to keep it from her face, and it is easy enough to hide it from her expression as the wood of her is already so stiff and stoic. But those pink tourmaline eyes betray her on every level, and she needn’t see her reflection to know her own eyes are shining with the kind of pain that would’ve once broken his heart.
They don’t fit together anymore.
She can feel it as they stand together like this, feel it in the rift of negligible distance between them. He is close enough to touch now, but neither one of them is brave enough to do so. She blinks, but then the blink becomes remembering and it is several dozen heartbeats before her eyes open again. But when they do they find him like his gravity is the only thing that keeps her here.
It had been easier as children, even while their families feuded and their homes had come to war. Even with all that, the only thing that had ever mattered was the way they felt about one another. Best friends, best everything.
She is surprised when he speaks again, blinking in a way that is almost a wince at his words until she searches his face again and her eyes tell her it was a joke. She can see it in his mouth, faint wrinkles that look far too unused. Her wide eyes soften and alight, a smile in mirror on her wooden lips. “You’ve lost your edge.” She tells him, eyes nearly shining now as she grins a secret smile at him. “I am literally made of flowers.”
But he limps forward and dims again, and it is like all the light and warmth has been snatched away from her. Had he seen her eyes drift to that injured, gnarled leg? Her lips part to say something, and for a split second she is glad when he beats her to it because she cannot think of a single thing that wouldn’t make him feel worse.
This is much easier.
She reaches out to kiss his brow, close enough because of the distance he carved again by half. “Okay, don’t stay.” She says, waiting for him to look up at her, most likely shocked by this rare, unbelievable compliance from someone he almost certainly recalls being nightmarishly stubborn. “But I’m going with you.”
linnea
these wildfires grow and grow until a brand new world takes shape
