07-07-2019, 03:00 AM
“You’re right, I don’t,” she agrees with him, her voice hardly above a whisper. She had lost contact with her family long ago, and she is sure none of them care where she is, or even noticed that she was gone. But the way that he is so broken over his family, and how he feels like he has wronged them, she knows that it is not the same.
Just another difference wedged between them, just another odd stacked against them.
She watches him with those broken and confused eyes, trying to understand how he can infuriate her and still draw her in. She can see glimpses of him shining through the cracks of his facade, and she wonders what would have happened if she had not jumped to the defense so quickly. But she remembers, then, as she always does, that it would not have mattered. If she had been kind, if something had managed to spark between them, she still could not have touched him. She would never be able to touch him, or anyone. She wavers inwardly between shutting down again, wanting to build her guard back up and drive him away, but also still clinging to some foolish hope that something could be salvaged.
But he is withdrawing, widening the gap between them, and even though he is only minding what she had warned, there is a disappointment that echoes in her dark brown eyes. It was selfish of her, she knows; selfish to want him to still want her even though he can’t have her, selfish to just want someone to express any sort of interest in her at all even though she could never, ever offer them anything in return. “Brigade,” his name is an ache on her tongue, and she doesn’t understand why it hurts to say it; he is not even hers to miss or want, and she is nothing, nothing to him. She doesn’t follow him as he retreats, even though she wants to. She can feel her anger beginning to flare again, she can feel the bitterness towards herself beginning to spread back into flames, but the hurt does not leave her eyes when she looks at him and says quietly, “If I could change it about myself, I would. If I could choose to not have to isolate myself to keep from hurting anyone that might try and touch me, I would.” She shakes her head, her eyes dropping as her raven-black forelock cascades in front of her vision, defeat riding every syllable of her voice. “But I can’t.”
@[brigade]
Just another difference wedged between them, just another odd stacked against them.
She watches him with those broken and confused eyes, trying to understand how he can infuriate her and still draw her in. She can see glimpses of him shining through the cracks of his facade, and she wonders what would have happened if she had not jumped to the defense so quickly. But she remembers, then, as she always does, that it would not have mattered. If she had been kind, if something had managed to spark between them, she still could not have touched him. She would never be able to touch him, or anyone. She wavers inwardly between shutting down again, wanting to build her guard back up and drive him away, but also still clinging to some foolish hope that something could be salvaged.
But he is withdrawing, widening the gap between them, and even though he is only minding what she had warned, there is a disappointment that echoes in her dark brown eyes. It was selfish of her, she knows; selfish to want him to still want her even though he can’t have her, selfish to just want someone to express any sort of interest in her at all even though she could never, ever offer them anything in return. “Brigade,” his name is an ache on her tongue, and she doesn’t understand why it hurts to say it; he is not even hers to miss or want, and she is nothing, nothing to him. She doesn’t follow him as he retreats, even though she wants to. She can feel her anger beginning to flare again, she can feel the bitterness towards herself beginning to spread back into flames, but the hurt does not leave her eyes when she looks at him and says quietly, “If I could change it about myself, I would. If I could choose to not have to isolate myself to keep from hurting anyone that might try and touch me, I would.” She shakes her head, her eyes dropping as her raven-black forelock cascades in front of her vision, defeat riding every syllable of her voice. “But I can’t.”
B R I N L Y
burn until our lives become the embers
burn until our lives become the embers
@[brigade]