flew me to places I've never been
Everest listened, his eyes fixed on a point just to the left of her teacup, as though anchoring himself in the curve of ceramic might keep him from unravelling entirely. Her voice was gentle, the way Isla’s always had been, but now even that gentleness scratched at him like sandpaper—too soft, too kind, too reminiscent of things he couldn’t feel properly anymore.
He didn’t respond right away. His thumb pressed harder into the back of his hand until a small crescent of pink began to bloom. The metaphor about the skyboat and the missing limb was… logical. Meant to be comforting. And maybe, in another life, it would have been.
But now? "I think losing a limb would be easier," he said finally, quiet and flat. "People understand what that means. They know how to help. What to expect. I don’t even know what I need." It wasn’t self-pity. It didn’t sound like despair. Just a kind of distant honesty, like he was reading the weather aloud from a report.
Still, he nodded once, clipped. His hands were still now, resting in his lap like they belonged to someone else. "I won’t stop you from being here," he said, and then hesitated—visibly, painfully—like his thoughts had jammed in the narrow doorway between intention and expression. "It’s just..." He faltered, brow furrowing as if the words had slipped behind some curtain in his mind. "I don’t know how to answer that kind of question anymore. It feels like asking a table if it would be happier if you turned the heat up." He blinked, lips parting as if to clarify, then closing again. "I know I’m supposed to have a feeling. A preference. But all I can think about is whether the legs are even, and if the floorboards are creaking under it."
He looked back at her—almost at her.
He didn’t respond right away. His thumb pressed harder into the back of his hand until a small crescent of pink began to bloom. The metaphor about the skyboat and the missing limb was… logical. Meant to be comforting. And maybe, in another life, it would have been.
But now? "I think losing a limb would be easier," he said finally, quiet and flat. "People understand what that means. They know how to help. What to expect. I don’t even know what I need." It wasn’t self-pity. It didn’t sound like despair. Just a kind of distant honesty, like he was reading the weather aloud from a report.
Still, he nodded once, clipped. His hands were still now, resting in his lap like they belonged to someone else. "I won’t stop you from being here," he said, and then hesitated—visibly, painfully—like his thoughts had jammed in the narrow doorway between intention and expression. "It’s just..." He faltered, brow furrowing as if the words had slipped behind some curtain in his mind. "I don’t know how to answer that kind of question anymore. It feels like asking a table if it would be happier if you turned the heat up." He blinked, lips parting as if to clarify, then closing again. "I know I’m supposed to have a feeling. A preference. But all I can think about is whether the legs are even, and if the floorboards are creaking under it."
He looked back at her—almost at her.
but now I'm laying on the cold hard ground
