Is it fear that he feels now? Something wide and yawning open between them—some chasm that he is not sure he knows how to cross. It blossoms in his chest, gnawing at his bones, and he wants to address it. He wants to put a label on it so that he can understand why he feels the way that he does—why he is so afraid to look her in the eye. Why he doesn’t know where they stand and what he can do about it.
It is because he doesn’t think he deserves it?
Is it because he can’t imagine a world where she would want him?
He is never more aware of his weaknesses than when she is looking at him, and he feels himself splinter apart on the fault lines of his own cowardice when she speaks. That part of his heart that never matured past his youthful fear wants to run, wants to ruin it, wants to do anything but sit here and face it.
But she touches his cheek and he stays.
He holds back the demons that rise in his throat and feels the shadows churn around his legs.
A muscle jumps in his jaw as everything he feels glows bright in his eyes and he studies her. “You can’t know what you’re asking,” he finally says and there is grit in his voice, in the tightness of his mouth, in the way that he studies her with an intensity he can’t dampen. “You deserve better than having me of all people close, Maze,” her name is still soft on his tongue, despite the hoarseness in his throat.
“You deserve the world, and I would try to give it to you, but I’m not good enough.”
He wants to step closer and hold her. He wants to push her far, far away, like he had when he was young. Had that been a mistake or the smartest decision of his life? He can’t tell, since he ended up here anyway.
“I love you, and I don’t think I’ll ever love you the way you deserve.”
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas
all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
@Mazikeen