are you still the same soul

Jude

I'll breathe you in like smoke in the backyard light
We used to laugh til we choked, into the wasted nights

Jude has always experienced love like stone - either firm beneath his feet or crushing upon his shoulder. Unbreakable, unsightly, but foundational. It has only ever silently upheld him or cruelly weighed him down. He doesn't want the latter to be Sohalia's fate. If forgiveness is the only kindness he can offer her then let it be enough to unbow her shoulders again.

There's the delayed flinch in his stomach of some faint desire to recoil from her touch, but like a tired street dog, Jude can't find the energy to exhibit that wariness when it has been so very long since anyone has touched him at all. It's a cruel joke that the last two people have been Koa and Sohalia, whose embraces have haunted him everlong in their loud absences from his life. Crueler still that they've reentered it seemingly in tandem and have broken all of Jude's defenses in one fell swoop. If Jude held himself in any regard he might have wondered whether that was the plan, to isolate him long enough that he would all too willingly welcome them back when they finally returned, desperate to be pulled out of the dark again. 

Maybe that's why his faint smile seizes and hangs awkwardly on his face as his eyes fill with dread the moment she asks. It's ridiculous to think she wouldn't - there's little else for them to safely talk about than these empty platitudes. For a moment he stands in her shoes, wondering whether it is kinder to lie to save her the heartbreak. The silence spins out seemingly endlessly as he struggles with the question internally. Yet, in the end, Jude can't make the same choice she once had. She deserves to hear this news from him, the one person who will understand the pain it will inflict. 

It's just one more burden he has to bear. 

"I...not well. Barely - well..." Gods, how does he say it? Jude isn't even sure himself if his dad was murdered, deeply unlucky, or creatively self-inflicted his own demise. Impartial reports and awkward condolences from strange couriers weren't exactly informative. Which array of words will somehow infinitesimally hurt her less? "Harper - dad, he - he's dead." The word is wooden and stilted in his mouth, and like a coward Jude's eyes unfocused somewhere near the cupid's bow of Sohalia's mouth, preferring to see her lips crease and wobble than the reaction he'll find in her eyes.

It was the best time of my life, but now I sleep alone
So please don't wake me up, 'cause my thrill is gone