marked me like a bloodstain
The words land between them like something fragile dropped from too high, and Flora doesn’t laugh this time, doesn’t try to stitch brightness over the seam. Instead, she steps into him properly, lifting her hand without hesitation to rest it against his shoulder, palm warm from the sun, fingers cool at the tips where Spice’s breath has lingered. She gives him a small squeeze, grounding rather than dramatic, as though reminding him that the street is solid beneath his boots and he is not about to drift clean out of it.
Up close the hollow in his eyes feels sharper, and her aqua gaze searches his face with a softness that does not flinch away from what she sees there, and when he asks his question her brows draw inward in a small, instinctive crease. "A ghost?" she repeats, quiet, head tilting the slightest bit as if trying to line the shape of his words up with something she recognizes. "Well…" she begins, and there’s the faintest wince at the corner of her smile because she knows already her answer won’t match his. "I guess it depends?"
Her thumb shifts against his shoulder, an absent stroke more than a movement, and she shakes her head once, a subtle, almost apologetic motion. "When my twin came back from the dead, I was—" She exhales through her nose, the memory flashing bright and sharp and incandescent all at once. "I was happy. Stupidly, stupidly happy." The words are simple, but something luminous flickers behind them, something that once burned hot enough to blister.
Her gaze steadies on him again, softer now, the ocean-bright of her eyes gentled by sympathy, because clearly that wasn't Liam's reaction to whatever had happened. She studies the way his mouth tries to lift and fails, the way his expression seems to be fighting a current he cannot quite see. "What happened?"
Up close the hollow in his eyes feels sharper, and her aqua gaze searches his face with a softness that does not flinch away from what she sees there, and when he asks his question her brows draw inward in a small, instinctive crease. "A ghost?" she repeats, quiet, head tilting the slightest bit as if trying to line the shape of his words up with something she recognizes. "Well…" she begins, and there’s the faintest wince at the corner of her smile because she knows already her answer won’t match his. "I guess it depends?"
Her thumb shifts against his shoulder, an absent stroke more than a movement, and she shakes her head once, a subtle, almost apologetic motion. "When my twin came back from the dead, I was—" She exhales through her nose, the memory flashing bright and sharp and incandescent all at once. "I was happy. Stupidly, stupidly happy." The words are simple, but something luminous flickers behind them, something that once burned hot enough to blister.
Her gaze steadies on him again, softer now, the ocean-bright of her eyes gentled by sympathy, because clearly that wasn't Liam's reaction to whatever had happened. She studies the way his mouth tries to lift and fails, the way his expression seems to be fighting a current he cannot quite see. "What happened?"
