i could be the reason you can't sleep at night
"But you were only there because of me." Flora counters, the spears of guilt feeling like the only wounds she properly deserves. She tenses her entire body as if she has the strength to keep her sobs contained, but despite her best efforts, tears and choked cries push past her lips, and she buries them as much as she can against Jack's shoulder and the darkness that clings to him. For all her bravado, all the confidence that not even death would keep her down for very long—and it hadn't—Flora hasn’t accounted for the fear that follows, the way the world went quiet and still around her, her heart an ever-slowing beat as her vision narrows, narrows, and then ends.
"The blade, it—" She tries to speak, but the words shatter into sobs, hiccuping in the back of her throat. With a pulse of apology, Flora lets the tangled walls of ivy she used to hold the worst of it at bay fall away, her memories spilling out, sharp and vivid. Pierce, that fleeting moment when he seemed ready to walk away, then the cruel decision that flashes in his eyes, the way his rapier plunges into her shoulder. The pain, the shock.
It shouldn't have killed her, but it did.
She gasps, her fingers curling into Jack’s shirt, holding on like he is the only thing keeping her from slipping back under. Fear surges, dark tendrils wrapping around her chest, squeezing until her breaths come in shallow, shaky gulps. Jack, she thinks, raw and unfiltered, his name echoing like a mantra, a lifeline to pull herself away from the dark. Tears slip down her cheeks, hot and unchecked, her body shaking as she presses closer, needing his warmth, needing the solid reality of him to ward off the chill that seems to have settled into her bones. "I'm sorry," she whispers, her forehead still pressed against him, her tears soaking his shirt, her grip refusing to loosen.
"The blade, it—" She tries to speak, but the words shatter into sobs, hiccuping in the back of her throat. With a pulse of apology, Flora lets the tangled walls of ivy she used to hold the worst of it at bay fall away, her memories spilling out, sharp and vivid. Pierce, that fleeting moment when he seemed ready to walk away, then the cruel decision that flashes in his eyes, the way his rapier plunges into her shoulder. The pain, the shock.
It shouldn't have killed her, but it did.
She gasps, her fingers curling into Jack’s shirt, holding on like he is the only thing keeping her from slipping back under. Fear surges, dark tendrils wrapping around her chest, squeezing until her breaths come in shallow, shaky gulps. Jack, she thinks, raw and unfiltered, his name echoing like a mantra, a lifeline to pull herself away from the dark. Tears slip down her cheeks, hot and unchecked, her body shaking as she presses closer, needing his warmth, needing the solid reality of him to ward off the chill that seems to have settled into her bones. "I'm sorry," she whispers, her forehead still pressed against him, her tears soaking his shirt, her grip refusing to loosen.
