hold my hand, it's a long way down to the bottom of the river
She had compared her small world to the sun and he had in turn compared her. Oh, if only she knew. Isle is not light and bright, she is not raw aching beauty, nor is she important in any way. But she does burn. If she is like the sun, then she is a red giant burning everything she can reach, everything that comes too close. She does not mean to, but again and again the world seemed to fracture around her. She was that creeping ghost that everyone dreads, the stranger who knows everything despite being uninvited, who knows every dark secret and ruinous truth. But they never seem to notice how she burns with them, how even she is not impervious to her own destruction. They never notice, and she never lets them.
It is so easy to be lonely, so effortless even as it breaks her.
He reacts to her touch and she does, she does notice the way he tenses when her lips brush the pink scar along his chest. She notices, too, the weight of his warm breath where it settles against her cheek. She notices because she had willed it to be, because with every aching bone in her delicate body, she wanted to believe she could mean something to someone. But even now, even as her heart thrummed in her chest like a trapped bird, something dark and feral twisted unpleasantly in the pit of her stomach.
She knew how much it would hurt when he left her, when he forgot her like most everyone else had.
But he touches her again and even though his eyes had been closed before, they are open now and she feels suddenly dirty with shame for he must be able to see her wretched soul. She had given him everything in that shaky explanation, taken a piece of her heart, of her trust, and dropped it carelessly into his open hands. She balks, starting to pull away until his lips touch the side of her mouth and she is quieted instantly. How was it possible that she had found him like this, a mountain of calm amidst her violent, turbulent storms. How, as she ran and ran with her heart breaking in her chest, had she managed to collide with him.
It was the sound of her heart shattering against her ribs, the rattle of a thousand broken pieces shifting in her flayed open chest, that let her know what had to be done.
You are a broken thing, Isle. You are not meant to be loved by anyone.
She felt her heart turn to dust in her chest when he looked at her, when those burning red eyes traced every angle of her delicate brown face. Selfishly, she drew against him, her small chest pressed to his, their hearts racing together. For a moment she could do nothing more than bury her face against his large, dark shoulder, taste sweat and sun and spring on his skin. But then sluggishly she pulled away, pausing to trace that face again, to remember it always.
“Offspring.” She repeated softly, taking his name like a brand, a piece of burning metal buried deep in her chest. “Don’t stay lonely forever.” She pulls away further and further, her chest tightening as at last she turned from him. “I should go home now.” But she chokes on that word, home, because there was no such thing waiting for her anywhere. Only loneliness, and surely he would know because she had been running wild and afraid and if she’d had a home why wouldn’t she have gone there. “Goodbye Offspring.”
And then when she was far enough away that she didn’t think he could hear her she whispered again, “Please, it hurts.” Except this pain, this hurt was different.
But she wouldn't, couldn't let him burn with her. She could spare him that.
Isle
