love you dead

Sohalia

Don't try to wake me up
Even if the sun really does come out tomorrow

If Soh had been able to read minds, she might have hurried to assure Jude that she was not apathetic, not in the slightest. Every bit of this interaction ached - from the shards of betrayal splintering her heart to the bone-deep sadness that he was essentially looking to erase feelings for her, to rip her out of his life as though she'd never existed in the first place. But she'd hurt him so much, hurt him enough, and she didn't want to do it anymore. It was easier, and safer, and kinder if she just kept it all to herself.

I still love you, he said, and she flinched at the ease with which he said it, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Was it wrong that she didn't love him, not like that, not anymore? Was there something wrong with her that she'd managed to move on, rendering him little more than a skeleton in her closet that she only pulled out when she was enmeshed in self-loathing?

"I... I didn't mean..." she stuttered, gaze fixed firmly on the charred wood of the fire pit. There was a pause, where she seemed to gather herself, tucking away the scattered thoughts that threatened to spill over. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I just, I don't know how to do this. I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to act right now."

When Jude handed her the pair of shears, she took them, staring at the silver metal in her hands. For a moment, she simply looked, Anani peering at them over her shoulder. Perhaps blood would have been more fitting for their relationship, since she'd apparently bled Jude dry without ever even knowing. Maybe if she cut off a fingertip or offered a limb, they could finally be even and move past all this without having to resort to a deal with Safrin to bottle up old feelings.

But in the end, she reached a shaking hand up to pull a lock of hair from the base of her skull, where neither she nor anyone else would see its loss - but no. That felt wrong, too symbolic of everything that they had been. This was something that she deserved to remember. That he deserved to remember, if they did indeed meet again after all this was over. "Do you think you'll want anything to do with me, after this?" she asked, tugging the hair tie that held the rest of her hair atop her head. "That we can actually be friends, if this works?"

Don't believe anything you say anymore
In the morn, in the morning