i worshiped at the altar of losing everything
It is as if the pain knows that it will soon meet its end.
Because it compounds as she speaks.
It builds like unbearable pressure in the long column of his throat.
Were he reliant on breath, he would not have been able to draw one.
But to think of her in pain makes the edges of his vision soften and strobe. He wants so fiercely to draw her into a firm embrace. He wants to hold her tightly against him and promise her that he will never leave again, that she will never have to be alone – that he will live (figuratively speaking) forever and he will never leave her side. But to touch her would surely only hurt them both, he thinks. So, he refrains. He does not gather her into an embrace, merely stands there and tilts his head and studies her face. He has loved her so completely for as long as he can remember, he knows, and he rails against the injustice of it all.
She’d shushed him and insisted that he wasn’t asking at all, that she’d offered to help, and he tries to allow this to absolve him of some of that guilt. It does not, certainly, because he has always been so careful. Careful not to ask anything of her. He’d never even asked for her heart.
He trusts her completely. It does not occur to him that he should be afraid, even when she does not tell him what she’ll do. He does not tremble when she draws him close, though he wishes that he could. He turns to press his mouth against the swell of her barrel, closes his eyes, murmurs, “I love you.” And then he does exactly as he’s told – stands absolutely still and waits.
He does not see the ice as it travels up her legs. Does not feel it as it spreads from her chest to his own skin. He does not feel it until it slips beneath the surface of his skin and then collects, concentrated, around that useless clenched-fist of a muscle sitting stagnant in the cavern of his chest. There is a singular instant of blinding relief. Like a breath held too long and then released. He feels quite suddenly weightless and he opens his eyes to find that the landscape has not changed. He is still standing pressed close to her, Ana. He is still whole, as far as he can tell.
He is silent a long moment before he nods and presses another chaste kiss into her skin. “Thank you, Ana,” he murmurs and then lifts his head. He does not know yet what she’s done but, in that moment, it doesn’t matter.
and i still chase you into heartache every time you take a step