yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about
Her hands lift before she can stop them, all surrender and fury in one motion, then ball into fists at her sides until her fingernails leave crescents in her palms. "I asked about Caly because I’m not an asshole," she says, breath pulling thin as thread through a needle. "I wasn’t about to just say hey, what if we just said fuck it and made things work, when you were dating someone else." Her head shakes, curls loosening against her cheeks as the wind combs the flowers. "What did you think I was going to do after you gushed about how amazing it was with her? Kiss you again? I pulled back because what else was I supposed to do?" And, because at the end of the day Flora was still just 23, she'd brought up bringing Caly around for a date as if to give Kai every chance of saying it wasn't what he'd wanted.
Flora draws herself taller, though the oversized sweater slouches around her, making her seem smaller somehow as the soft gray fabric swallows her whole. "I never asked you to go," she adds, softer but edged, and her eyes flicker to his mouth before she drags them away. "Even when I couldn’t look at you without wanting to feel your lips again or your hands, I still stayed. I picked awkward, grave cleaning over not having you." Lifting her eyes for a moment to dare meeting the warm copper of his gaze, Flora nearly flinches. "You chose to decide what was best for me behind my back and make stupid wishes."
Then as Kai says he’s been trying to fix what’s between them, a laugh rises that never makes it past her teeth. "When," she asks, and the word floats out like a petal with a blade stitched inside it. "When you were going to Safrin about Caly? When you were meeting Soh to talk more about Caly? When you were writing letters to Caly and planning dates for Caly?" Whatever his stupid quest was she didn't doubt he'd been doing that too, but the way it looked to Flora was like Kaisel had all the time in the world for Caly-related endeavours, and only deigned to write to her so he could talk about his date with her.
Anger tightens every line of Flora's body, then; the field feels too bright and the sky too wide for the conversation they're having. So when his admission comes—because he couldn’t have her—she recoils as if struck, shoulders knitting tight, the first tears slipping hot and traitorous down her cheeks. She wipes them away with quick, impatient fingers, as if closing a breach in a dam. "You could have," she whispers, and it doesn’t sound like hope so much as something once polished left out to rust. "You did."
Her gaze drops to the flowers as if they might steady her, all that impossible colour pretending to be firm ground. "I couldn’t stop thinking about that night," she admits, voice low and seaworn. "Even when I didn’t hear from you, I went to your parents’ house and made you that keychain so you wouldn’t feel alone in King’s End. I sent it without my name so you wouldn’t have to feel conflicted, because I knew you’d never want anything with me because of Koa." She swallows, small and stubborn, then pushes on before the silence can close over her. "I went to talk to Caly to try and smooth things over, and gods, she was icy." The tears that rise now are warmer than anger and heavier than pride, and she lets them go, salt tracking clean lines through the flush on her cheeks as her lips twist. "I basically had to give up my bar because of all of this," she says, the words catching on the rim of a breath, "when all I was trying to do was the right thing." Her voice wavers and cracks; she swallows hard, furious with herself for letting so much of what he’s done to her seep through the armour she has held shut with sleeves and stubbornness, the sound of it fraying in the bright air like a torn sail that refuses to quiet.
Flora draws herself taller, though the oversized sweater slouches around her, making her seem smaller somehow as the soft gray fabric swallows her whole. "I never asked you to go," she adds, softer but edged, and her eyes flicker to his mouth before she drags them away. "Even when I couldn’t look at you without wanting to feel your lips again or your hands, I still stayed. I picked awkward, grave cleaning over not having you." Lifting her eyes for a moment to dare meeting the warm copper of his gaze, Flora nearly flinches. "You chose to decide what was best for me behind my back and make stupid wishes."
Then as Kai says he’s been trying to fix what’s between them, a laugh rises that never makes it past her teeth. "When," she asks, and the word floats out like a petal with a blade stitched inside it. "When you were going to Safrin about Caly? When you were meeting Soh to talk more about Caly? When you were writing letters to Caly and planning dates for Caly?" Whatever his stupid quest was she didn't doubt he'd been doing that too, but the way it looked to Flora was like Kaisel had all the time in the world for Caly-related endeavours, and only deigned to write to her so he could talk about his date with her.
Anger tightens every line of Flora's body, then; the field feels too bright and the sky too wide for the conversation they're having. So when his admission comes—because he couldn’t have her—she recoils as if struck, shoulders knitting tight, the first tears slipping hot and traitorous down her cheeks. She wipes them away with quick, impatient fingers, as if closing a breach in a dam. "You could have," she whispers, and it doesn’t sound like hope so much as something once polished left out to rust. "You did."
Her gaze drops to the flowers as if they might steady her, all that impossible colour pretending to be firm ground. "I couldn’t stop thinking about that night," she admits, voice low and seaworn. "Even when I didn’t hear from you, I went to your parents’ house and made you that keychain so you wouldn’t feel alone in King’s End. I sent it without my name so you wouldn’t have to feel conflicted, because I knew you’d never want anything with me because of Koa." She swallows, small and stubborn, then pushes on before the silence can close over her. "I went to talk to Caly to try and smooth things over, and gods, she was icy." The tears that rise now are warmer than anger and heavier than pride, and she lets them go, salt tracking clean lines through the flush on her cheeks as her lips twist. "I basically had to give up my bar because of all of this," she says, the words catching on the rim of a breath, "when all I was trying to do was the right thing." Her voice wavers and cracks; she swallows hard, furious with herself for letting so much of what he’s done to her seep through the armour she has held shut with sleeves and stubbornness, the sound of it fraying in the bright air like a torn sail that refuses to quiet.
real big things I still gotta figure out
