yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about
Her hands fly up, disbelief glittering sharper than sun on snow, then fall to fists against the sweater. "How dare you make it sound like you only went after Caly because of me," she says, the scoff bright and brittle as glass. "I’m not a mind reader either, Kaisel. You had every chance to correct me when I said it wouldn’t change things between us—and you didn’t."
His dare about gushing strikes like heat under the skin, and her eyes flash with it even as she keeps her tone level. "The most you ever said about that night was that you wanted to stay and were just as much to blame," she answers, and in the space behind the words her thoughts spill anyway, conjuring all the soft hooks she’d cast to bring more truth to the surface—how she said she’d started it, how she joked about him being a horny teenage boy, how she left him room to say what it meant—and every time the net came up light, vague answers slipping through like minnows she could never cup in both hands.
She clutches at his newest words as if they might keep her head above water and discovers they only sting the eyes. A sharp laugh leaves her, edged in salt. "I had just nearly died," she says, exasperation braided tight with something more intimate and rawer. "Of course I needed you. Did Caly have to ask you to write to her? Did Soh ask you to meet? Did Caly ask for a third date? Did Frey or Safrin ask to see you?" Each question lands clean and precise, petals scattered, yet falling in a row. "Funny how many things you found a way to do without anyone asking—just never with me."
He offers firsts as if they are coins that might tip the scale, and she shakes her head, tears blurring the field into one wide ribbon of colour. "I don’t care who you went to first," she says, arms cinching tighter until the oversized grey gathers like armour at her elbows. "I care what you did." Save for Enzo, no one had ever put Flora first; not her parents, not her friends, and not Jack. It wasn't a think she expected or needed, sad as that was. "I didn’t need you to go to Frey. I didn’t need you to sub in Sohalia. I needed you. You were the only thing I wanted."
Then he says it—that was one night—and the plateau tilts under her feet as if the whole green world has shifted a fraction off its axis. She steps back like the words have weight, heartbeat climbing into her throat until breath becomes a narrow seam she must sip at. He keeps speaking and the meaning tries to soften, but the hook is already set even if undoubtably he'd meant that it hadn't been just one night. "I wanted you when you weren’t mine to want," she says, softer now, her voice worn and aching. "And you just...wanted someone else. Missed someone else." Wanted mornings and firsts and love with someone else.
When he reaches for her, instinct and longing surge like twin currents, and for a dangerous instant, she nearly lets herself be taken. But she knows the cost of crumbling in his arms, knows this isn’t like sleeping like Jack where the rule are ones she understands; this is something new with her heart already exposed, and Kaisel has already nearly broken it once. Her fingers find her ring and turn; the air shivers around her and she thins into absence, a slip of breeze moving through colour to try and evade him. The blooms part and close in her wake as she threads back toward the Sugartide, the sound of her voice trailing like a bright ribbon over her shoulder—steady, controlled, refusing to break even as her tears come a touch more freely now for her invisibility. "Come on," she calls, invisible among the flowers. "I’m going back."
His dare about gushing strikes like heat under the skin, and her eyes flash with it even as she keeps her tone level. "The most you ever said about that night was that you wanted to stay and were just as much to blame," she answers, and in the space behind the words her thoughts spill anyway, conjuring all the soft hooks she’d cast to bring more truth to the surface—how she said she’d started it, how she joked about him being a horny teenage boy, how she left him room to say what it meant—and every time the net came up light, vague answers slipping through like minnows she could never cup in both hands.
She clutches at his newest words as if they might keep her head above water and discovers they only sting the eyes. A sharp laugh leaves her, edged in salt. "I had just nearly died," she says, exasperation braided tight with something more intimate and rawer. "Of course I needed you. Did Caly have to ask you to write to her? Did Soh ask you to meet? Did Caly ask for a third date? Did Frey or Safrin ask to see you?" Each question lands clean and precise, petals scattered, yet falling in a row. "Funny how many things you found a way to do without anyone asking—just never with me."
He offers firsts as if they are coins that might tip the scale, and she shakes her head, tears blurring the field into one wide ribbon of colour. "I don’t care who you went to first," she says, arms cinching tighter until the oversized grey gathers like armour at her elbows. "I care what you did." Save for Enzo, no one had ever put Flora first; not her parents, not her friends, and not Jack. It wasn't a think she expected or needed, sad as that was. "I didn’t need you to go to Frey. I didn’t need you to sub in Sohalia. I needed you. You were the only thing I wanted."
Then he says it—that was one night—and the plateau tilts under her feet as if the whole green world has shifted a fraction off its axis. She steps back like the words have weight, heartbeat climbing into her throat until breath becomes a narrow seam she must sip at. He keeps speaking and the meaning tries to soften, but the hook is already set even if undoubtably he'd meant that it hadn't been just one night. "I wanted you when you weren’t mine to want," she says, softer now, her voice worn and aching. "And you just...wanted someone else. Missed someone else." Wanted mornings and firsts and love with someone else.
When he reaches for her, instinct and longing surge like twin currents, and for a dangerous instant, she nearly lets herself be taken. But she knows the cost of crumbling in his arms, knows this isn’t like sleeping like Jack where the rule are ones she understands; this is something new with her heart already exposed, and Kaisel has already nearly broken it once. Her fingers find her ring and turn; the air shivers around her and she thins into absence, a slip of breeze moving through colour to try and evade him. The blooms part and close in her wake as she threads back toward the Sugartide, the sound of her voice trailing like a bright ribbon over her shoulder—steady, controlled, refusing to break even as her tears come a touch more freely now for her invisibility. "Come on," she calls, invisible among the flowers. "I’m going back."
real big things I still gotta figure out
