There's still life in the Armageddon

Evie

I dreamt in the sound of your voice

and bathed in the color of your love

Evie wouldn’t have felt comfortable giving an apology without context, no matter how sincere. How could Maea truly understand her otherwise? Feel and comprehend the depths of her regret? “When you’re young and hurting, you simply can’t conceive of the idea that other people are hurting too, or that you’re perpetuating the cycle of pain.” Evie has picked up a good deal of psychology teaching in her years of growth and education, and it comes out melancholic. “And…I know it doesn’t help, but part of me is glad we didn’t drag you in,” she confesses quietly, not wanting to throw Maea’s sincere desires back in her face. “There was so much lying and performing. I admired your sincerity; I wouldn’t have wanted to see it die.” Stifled and shoved into a mold the way she and Amalia had been.

The sting of tears comes as a surprise, and she goes to blink them away only to send them rippling down her cheeks. Evie had thought herself healed enough on this topic, but maybe there was some poison lingering after all. Because all her life she has wanted to hear these words, to believe that someone had wanted to save her, that she was at all worthy of it. “Gods. Please don’t apologize, Maea. You were just a girl,” she bemoans, and cries for all three of them. Cries so hard and sudden that her throat burns and her chest feels like it’s caving in. Their girlhoods had been stolen from them, and she can feel the burned and ragged edges every day even now as a woman. “You couldn’t have saved me. I couldn’t have healed you, no matter how much I trained and tried. I’m just grateful we made it out.” The two of them out of how many lost? The injustice makes her want to vomit. Instead she just…cries. Silent and unfairly composed, because it feels wrong not to, when this is supposed to be about Maea.

She isn’t expecting it to be turned in exactly her direction, and she inhales a breath that shudders and wobbles painfully. She wipes tears off her freckled cheeks with the back of her hand, fighting for composure. “Because I hurt you. Even if you chose never to forgive me, I wanted to give you the explanation and apology you deserved.” Her ginger lashes are clumped and her eyes are stained red as she lifts her gaze to Maea. “Once the barrier was gone, once I stopped pretending, I realized I didn’t have any friends anyway. And even if it was going to be a hard road, I thought maybe we could be friends.” Nobody else would ever understand what they went through, the depth of trauma and isolation of growing up within the barrier. Everyone else had already been lost. “I know who you are. That’s the advantage you gave me, by being yourself. I just…don’t know if you’ll like me if you actually know me.” Even if she is objectively kinder, it doesn’t mean they’ll find enough compatibility for something like real friendship.

And The most beautiful thought
Is the fact that I have always loved you