Would he have?
Her assertion, so timid and yet so sure, strikes at him and pulls him up short. The red of his wings press even closer into his sides and he feels the question swirl around within him. He feels the way that it bruises his insides, tests the borders, until he is short of breath and unsure about where to turn next.
Would he have?
Would he have watched her drown?
Once, he would have been able to answer so certainly. For all of his flaws as a youth—brash, reckless, a touch self-absorbed—he had never been cruel. Wild, perhaps, and cruel but only in the way of the wolves. It is not cruelty when it is nature’s law that drives you forward and determines the path you take.
But the last few years turns everything inside out.
The last few years have made him question everything that he thought he knew.
Was he truly cruel? Was he heartless?
His face sharpens even more, the muscles in his jaw pronounced, and he doesn’t bother to look away from her. Doesn’t bother to pretend that he is uncertain about how to proceed and how to answer her.
Honestly, he supposes.
There’s nothing he can do but be honest.
Still, it unsettles him and he finds that it’s more difficult than he would imagine to find some balance in the world. “I wouldn’t have,” he finally answers and it is like pulling teeth. He swallows and wonders why he is still here, why he is admitting these things to her, why her sadness pulls at his belly.
“I am a deeply flawed man, but I wouldn’t have let you drown.”
BRIGADE
when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake