Jude
Do you love me like that?
If I keep on driving
“I forgive you,” he murmurs, certainty clear even in his otherwise crumpled and exhausted frame. Jude doesn’t know how not to forgive her; he comes from a family line of people who never learned how to stop letting people hurt them, how to stand up and take the boots off their backs. All he has managed to heal from the generational cycles before him is the disbelief in promises and vows - but Sohalia had never promised him forever. There had been nothing to distrust. Now all that’s left is to forgive, because he so badly wants to. If I keep on driving
They don’t speak much past that. They’re too tired, too hurt and overwhelmed. They go to bed and hold hands across the empty spaces of the bed, fingers loosely intertwined like the days before they ever kissed. Not innocent anymore, but childlike all the same.
- - -
When they wake, the eggshells under their feet return. There’s more to say and they both know it, but neither of them is sure which ending lies in their future and it’s terrifying. Jude tries to be brave. Tries to channel Koa, which should be laughable considering everything. “You seemed like you were holding something back yesterday. You seemed…angry. Do you want to talk about it?” Sad doe eyes look at her from across the breakfast table. It feels too mature for them to do it this way, more befitting people like his parents, but it’s the only example he has to draw from.
Would you hold me when we crash?
Or would you let me go?
Or would you let me go?
