Ryatah
WHEN I WAS SHIPWRECKED I THOUGHT OF YOU
IN THE CRACKS OF LIGHT I DREAMED OF YOU
She is almost afraid to find him.
She is not sure how long she has been gone, but knows it is long enough for her to have lost all track of time and for him to have lost all hope.
She has died before—more than once—and time has passed differently each time but this time was incomparable. This time she is left hollowed and changed, her mind nothing but frayed threads that have come unraveled, and while she has no sense of what is real and what is not real she knows that she loves him infinitely and has to find him.
She did not expect him to wait for her. She had already braced herself for that. He may not have settled with someone else—that wasn’t like him, that much she knew—but she could not blame him for falling back into old habits. She could not blame him for filling the void of her absence with whatever or whoever he saw fit, but it would be a lie to say the very thought cleaves her in two.
She should have been cautious in finding him, in knowing that the worst could be true, but she has always been quick to break her heart faster than anyone else ever could, and with only one single thread left intact she follows it straight to him.
Her steps stall once she finds him, though, and she is surprised at her own hesitancy. At the way she stands and stares, that ethereal aura of hers chasing away the shadows cast by the trees he has secluded himself in. His eyes are the same striking yellow that she remembers, sharp enough to cut herself on, and while her delusions in the void and the after had seemed accurate at the time she is reminded of how stupid she had been for ever believing them.
There is nothing her mind or anyone else’s could ever conjure up that would compare to the real him.
“Atrox,” her tongue has memorized the shape of his name, because she had never stopped saying it, and the only difference now is that he can hear her instead of it being swallowed by darkness. She imagines herself stepping forward, she stares at the spot against his chest she would press into, and knows she would be able to smell the pine and mountains and all the other scents that remind her of him. But she doesn’t move, frozen by her own uncertainty and fear—and by the nagging darkness trying to draw the thread back in and remind her that this isn’t real.
“I’m so sorry,” she finally whispers, her eyes seeming to suck the shadows into them as they darken with unshed tears. The way her regrown heart aches and throbs she knows that this must be real, but the fear of his rejection almost has her wishing that it wasn’t.
She is not sure how long she has been gone, but knows it is long enough for her to have lost all track of time and for him to have lost all hope.
She has died before—more than once—and time has passed differently each time but this time was incomparable. This time she is left hollowed and changed, her mind nothing but frayed threads that have come unraveled, and while she has no sense of what is real and what is not real she knows that she loves him infinitely and has to find him.
She did not expect him to wait for her. She had already braced herself for that. He may not have settled with someone else—that wasn’t like him, that much she knew—but she could not blame him for falling back into old habits. She could not blame him for filling the void of her absence with whatever or whoever he saw fit, but it would be a lie to say the very thought cleaves her in two.
She should have been cautious in finding him, in knowing that the worst could be true, but she has always been quick to break her heart faster than anyone else ever could, and with only one single thread left intact she follows it straight to him.
Her steps stall once she finds him, though, and she is surprised at her own hesitancy. At the way she stands and stares, that ethereal aura of hers chasing away the shadows cast by the trees he has secluded himself in. His eyes are the same striking yellow that she remembers, sharp enough to cut herself on, and while her delusions in the void and the after had seemed accurate at the time she is reminded of how stupid she had been for ever believing them.
There is nothing her mind or anyone else’s could ever conjure up that would compare to the real him.
“Atrox,” her tongue has memorized the shape of his name, because she had never stopped saying it, and the only difference now is that he can hear her instead of it being swallowed by darkness. She imagines herself stepping forward, she stares at the spot against his chest she would press into, and knows she would be able to smell the pine and mountains and all the other scents that remind her of him. But she doesn’t move, frozen by her own uncertainty and fear—and by the nagging darkness trying to draw the thread back in and remind her that this isn’t real.
“I’m so sorry,” she finally whispers, her eyes seeming to suck the shadows into them as they darken with unshed tears. The way her regrown heart aches and throbs she knows that this must be real, but the fear of his rejection almost has her wishing that it wasn’t.
AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH —
BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE