we're alone, just like you said, aureus

[basilica]

basilica

She knows immediately that she has said the wrong thing.
As he stiffens she withdraws, shrinking in on herself.

He steels himself but she cannot. The heart is too big, she cannot protect herself from it. It twinges and spasms as her brow furrows in confusion.

They had been friends, she had been certain of it. He had been one of her only friends. They had walked for hours and she had convinced herself that he had taken as much comfort in her company as she had taken in his. But she does not recognize the boy stood before her now. She cannot reconcile these hard edges with the softness she had known.

Her heart beats sideways and she swallows thickly, taking a small step backward, away from him. She is not frightened, she simply does not understand.

How could he be the something wrong? How could she understand? Her brow does not soften, she does not know how to laugh off this sharpness. Perhaps if she were stronger or bolder or brighter she might have gone to him, rolled her eyes, insisted that there was nothing in the world she could not understand. Insisted that he was being ridiculous in insisting that there was anything wrong with him at all.

But this feels like an accusation and she doesn’t understand what she’s done wrong.

Her frown deepens until the edges of her mouth are pulled down with it.

“I thought…”

She pauses, shakes her head, finally averts her gaze as if in surrender.

“I thought we were friends.”

She hates how miserable it sounds coming out of her mouth but she can’t make it sound any different.

“Friends tell each other things. Friends help each other.”

heaven's gate had
such eloquent graffiti

@[aureus]