[ The threat of words that ask if heartbreak be so awful when there's another to mend and patch it up for him press against her teeth. Someone who isn't arguably better but is better at healing and mending than she'll ever be? Wouldn’t a brilliant, smarter soul be more deserving of a heart that would go to war over everything he believed in? How could a fickle heart hope to compare?
There are some days she could choke on her lovesick jealousy. Ever since she can recall she's left claw marks in everything she's ever wanted and owned. How is that considered love? Because that's what this feeling is, isn't it? It can never have been anything but love when it's come to Claude. And if so, isn't that what all of this fighting and awful self-awareness has culminated into? Finding a softer way to love no matter what the outcome of that looks like?
Her retreat is met with resistance and her eyes dart from him to their still clasped hands below the water. Despite the loud sound of panic that swells in her head, a part of her faintly thinks that it's probably a good thing that he's held on. Not because she wants him to, but because she's ready to run right out of the tub and back to the loft. Maybe there's still a way she can save them from adding one more to their ever growing pile.
But then he doesn't agree with her. Nor does he tell her that she's awful for nurturing all of this jealousy in her heart, letting it feast on her like some parasite before it had crawled out of her throat to lash out at him that night in the Horizon. When she sees his lips twitch, trying and failing to form humour around the semantics of the word she had misinterpreted for weeks, her lips involuntarily twitch equally humourless. ]
Aren’t you supposed to want me to be better?
[ Better, sweeter, more graceful - anything to just accept he and Sylvain without pang, longing or bitterness on her tongue?
This is the part in her romance novels where the person on the receiving end of similar reassurances surrenders themselves to the person they had been pining for all this time. Instead her heart strains against the lead weights that she's anchored them to. It's not that they don't fill her heart with warmth or chip away at the box that she's built around herself. It’s that after years of convincing herself that her box is only meant to be filled with sweet, expensive, soft things that she’s found herself in the middle of a maelstrom of emotions that are none of those things.
The smile falls, dashed by a bite of her bottom lip as her eyes begin to mist. ]
I’m supposed to be happy for you two. I’m supposed to just walk behind you both cheering you on because that’s where I belong — not wish that it were me. [ Her voice wavers under the weight of the expectation of what it would mean to be responsible for his happiness. To be responsible for holding his heart with the care he deserves. ] I want so badly to make you happy but I’m so scared I won’t be able to because all I’ve done lately is hurt you. There’s no amount of jewelry or apologies I can make for putting you through that.
[ The steps she’s been trying to keep up with in this fumbling, awkward dance come to a halt. ]
And even if we know our feelings now — where do we go from here?
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There are some days she could choke on her lovesick jealousy. Ever since she can recall she's left claw marks in everything she's ever wanted and owned. How is that considered love? Because that's what this feeling is, isn't it? It can never have been anything but love when it's come to Claude. And if so, isn't that what all of this fighting and awful self-awareness has culminated into? Finding a softer way to love no matter what the outcome of that looks like?
Her retreat is met with resistance and her eyes dart from him to their still clasped hands below the water. Despite the loud sound of panic that swells in her head, a part of her faintly thinks that it's probably a good thing that he's held on. Not because she wants him to, but because she's ready to run right out of the tub and back to the loft. Maybe there's still a way she can save them from adding one more to their ever growing pile.
But then he doesn't agree with her. Nor does he tell her that she's awful for nurturing all of this jealousy in her heart, letting it feast on her like some parasite before it had crawled out of her throat to lash out at him that night in the Horizon. When she sees his lips twitch, trying and failing to form humour around the semantics of the word she had misinterpreted for weeks, her lips involuntarily twitch equally humourless. ]
Aren’t you supposed to want me to be better?
[ Better, sweeter, more graceful - anything to just accept he and Sylvain without pang, longing or bitterness on her tongue?
This is the part in her romance novels where the person on the receiving end of similar reassurances surrenders themselves to the person they had been pining for all this time. Instead her heart strains against the lead weights that she's anchored them to. It's not that they don't fill her heart with warmth or chip away at the box that she's built around herself. It’s that after years of convincing herself that her box is only meant to be filled with sweet, expensive, soft things that she’s found herself in the middle of a maelstrom of emotions that are none of those things.
The smile falls, dashed by a bite of her bottom lip as her eyes begin to mist. ]
I’m supposed to be happy for you two. I’m supposed to just walk behind you both cheering you on because that’s where I belong — not wish that it were me. [ Her voice wavers under the weight of the expectation of what it would mean to be responsible for his happiness. To be responsible for holding his heart with the care he deserves. ] I want so badly to make you happy but I’m so scared I won’t be able to because all I’ve done lately is hurt you. There’s no amount of jewelry or apologies I can make for putting you through that.
[ The steps she’s been trying to keep up with in this fumbling, awkward dance come to a halt. ]
And even if we know our feelings now — where do we go from here?