yeah I got heartbreak that I reminisce about
For a long moment she lets his offer rest where it lands and tests it against the shape of what she knows. She has felt something for him far longer than a single night aboard the Sugar Tide; it was there at her going-away party in the bright, embarrassing flare of jealousy when she saw him with someone else, and it was there in the words she leaned to whisper against his ear—I’ll always be here—meant as a promise with more chambers than she dared to open. She thinks of the dance they owed each other that night, the vow to make it happen; of the way they’d talked about stars on her deck and a trip to Halo to watch the sky unspool its lights. Of running away where no one could find them. So many plans spoken aloud like constellations traced by fingertip, and somehow they never found the time, never found the road, never found anything more than the shape of each other that night, and gods but the longer it looked, the more the magic of his words felt painted on; lovely, until touched, and then it all blurred back to reality.
How is he meant to mend something when anything he says will be sifted for the grains of salt she'll need to believe it, and anything he does will still carry the faint outline of this? Tears move quietly along her temples; she presses her mouth into a line to smother the useless hiccup of a sob before it can betray her.
None of this feels like them. Not the hush. Not the space. Even when she couldn’t look at him at the House of Midnight, he’d still found a way to make her smile; his foot nudged out like a lifeline, absurd and perfect, a thing to touch when touch was all they had left. Now she lies invisible in a field built for grand gestures, high in the Draig Cordillera where the world pretends to be nothing but colour and wonder, and still her chest feels scraped clean, a hollow no beauty can reach. She could reach for him; he could reach for her; but her fingertips feel cold in a way that feels permanent, as if the world has quietly moved everything warm an arm’s length beyond her.
She pulls in a breath, thin but steady, and tries to dress herself back in composure. "There’s nothing you need to make up to me," she says at last, the softness of it bruised and broken. "It just...is what it is."
How is he meant to mend something when anything he says will be sifted for the grains of salt she'll need to believe it, and anything he does will still carry the faint outline of this? Tears move quietly along her temples; she presses her mouth into a line to smother the useless hiccup of a sob before it can betray her.
None of this feels like them. Not the hush. Not the space. Even when she couldn’t look at him at the House of Midnight, he’d still found a way to make her smile; his foot nudged out like a lifeline, absurd and perfect, a thing to touch when touch was all they had left. Now she lies invisible in a field built for grand gestures, high in the Draig Cordillera where the world pretends to be nothing but colour and wonder, and still her chest feels scraped clean, a hollow no beauty can reach. She could reach for him; he could reach for her; but her fingertips feel cold in a way that feels permanent, as if the world has quietly moved everything warm an arm’s length beyond her.
She pulls in a breath, thin but steady, and tries to dress herself back in composure. "There’s nothing you need to make up to me," she says at last, the softness of it bruised and broken. "It just...is what it is."
real big things I still gotta figure out
