one touch will make you so reckless you might start feeling
one touch will finally show to me what you can't hide
She knows it is going to hurt but all of the preparation in the world does not prepare her.
Every time, his rejection slips between her blades and steals her breath and she feels her vision swim. Every time, she feels it somehow stronger, somehow fiercer. She can feel the way that it steals under her skin and plants new poisonous flowers in her veins. It should be enough to drive her away, but she knows by now that she won’t be going anywhere. She knows by now that this is what she is meant to live, what she is meant to experience. She knows that this is her fault because she keeps walking back in the flame.
This time, she cannot stop the tears that come to her eyes hot and fierce.
She breathes in deep and feels the way her throat burns.
She is such a stupid, stupid girl.
She had promised herself.
But he is so clear this time. There is no implication. Nothing for her to hope to. ‘I will never be able to love you,’ he says and she hears it so loud and clear that it pounds into her chest.
She will fall asleep to the sound of it.
She will wake to it.
I will never be able to love you.
She is quiet for several minutes as she tries to steady herself, as she tries to come up with some reason that this is okay and she will survive him not loving her. Her love is enough, maybe. She doesn’t need him to love her back. She can take his friendship when it means pressing platonic kisses to her head (she had been so dumb to think that it was more, that this meant more) and watching over their daughter.
“If we hurry, we can make the forest soon.”
Her voice sounds alien to her. Dull and a little lifeless, an echo of a hollow thing.
“Maybe we can split up when we get there to see if one of us can find her.”
So she will not have to hide the creaking sound of her heart shattering in her chest.