Love in the Dark || Self-Para
Take your eyes off of me so I can leave I'm far too ashamed to do it with you watching me Don't come any closer Don't try to change my mind I'm being cruel to be kind
Cora ~
I'm sorry this isn't in person. It should have been I know. What kind of person am I to not do this in person? Well, you know me better than anyone so I hope you can know me for the man you've come to know these past wonderful months that I've had with you rather the man who said goodbye with a note. I'm going back to Rome. There are things here, little complications, that make it impossible for me to stay and keep my head. I'll miss you more than you can ever know. You changed my life, Cora. Never forget that. All my love, Lucius. P.S. The keys to our car are in the second drawer on the left in my garage. I'd like to say something cheesy about how I just left him for you because it was too much trouble to bring him to Italy, but truthfully I wanted to give you a gift. Enjoy Duke and please don't crash him.
I need you. They were words the pair of them had traded only a few weeks ago, words he had first spilled onto her rejoicing ears and then ones that she herself had uttered back, not doubting for a moment that there was any lack of truth within those syllables. But she had been wrong to do so. He had said he needed her and yet...he was no longer here beside her. And a truth that had struck her over and over again throughout her life struck her once more. People might claim to need her, but she always needed them far more than they did her. Try and cling to those she loved as she might, she couldn’t cling to something that wasn’t hers, didn’t have the right to. And Lucius most certainly wasn’t hers. That had been made obvious in the moments it had become apparent he was gone, those soul-shattering seconds that had left her crumpled on the ground, much like the note that had fallen from her shaking hands. Both her and the words on that paper had served their use and now they were no longer needed, so they simply became surplus. Something that still existed but had no purpose, and it’s a known fact that something existing without purpose is practically nothing. That’s what she was without her best friend, without the man she loved.
He didn’t need her. But she needed him like a fish needed water. Now she was left to struggle and find how it was she was meant to go on without the man who had come to be her haven, how to go on without the arms that had held her that were her home. Home. When Lucius had left he had taken nearly all of her’s with him. Until now, she had considered New Rome her home, but it was glaringly apparent that a city wasn’t home, it was the people within that were. And the biggest house she’d built had been Lucius. Cora was left homeless, robbed of the only place she felt safe to laugh and smile one moment and then share her deepest worries the next. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. Most of her young life had been spent without a true home, only four empty walls that kept her from the rain and wind, though perhaps if those had been let in then she would have at least felt something, the coldness of the pelting drops and the whipping of the wind. But that had been bearable, because she hadn’t yet known the warmth of a home. They say to have loved and lost is better than to never have loved at all, but she was certain whoever had written that had been out of their minds. If she hadn’t loved, she wouldn’t have this gaping hole in her chest that felt as if it were devouring the pieces of her heart that kept chipping off, slowly sucking in the pieces of her that made her whole, as if the shining star of her heart had supernovaed into a black hole.
He was gone, had left just as others in her life had departed. First her father not even a month after she was born, then her mother numerous times throughout the year, and now Lucius to Rome. People left in different ways and at different times, but the one thing in common with all their forsaking was the common theme of the state they left Cora in. Alone. There was a reason she was so desperately attached to her friends. She was terrified to lose them, terrified to lose the love and company she had yearned for during the majority of her life. Lucius leaving was her worst fear realized, and her body made it apparent as her breath began to come in short, frequent, gasping spurts and sobs wracked her body.
She didn’t even get to say goodbye. But even as she thought such words she wondered whether goodbyes were something she truly wanted. Goodbyes signalled an end, and though in her soul she felt as if this were the end of anything that mattered, in the most secret of places, her heart of hearts, she fostered the smallest hope, as if inside the bottomless black hole the smallest pinprick of light was managing to shine through. It spurred her into action, and soon she was on her knees, searching the ground frantically for the paper that had fallen from her hands during her fall from happiness. An address. There had been an address on the envelope. Her tears turned to panic as her fingers scraped the floor and under cupboards, desperately trying to find that sliver of hope that had come in paper form. Finally her fingertips touched upon it, and she read the address written there until she had not only memorized, but engraved the words on her heart.
In the next moments she was running out of the Third Cohort, tear tracks drying in the wind that tugged at her hair as she sprinted for the stables. If she could find a pegasus- if she could ask one to take her on a journey- she wasn’t thinking of the punishments that would no doubt come for such endeavors, she was past thinking of anything that wasn’t seeing Lucius once more. Just one more time, please. She was praying to the gods with a fervency that matched nothing she had ever asked for before, wondering if she was foolish to think that Venus or Aphrodite or just someone might be in a pitying mood today. She had her answer sooner rather than later.
With a crack, Cora’s head was smacking into the ground as some unforeseen object rammed her to the stones below. Look both ways when crossing the street is something all children are taught from a young age, especially in a city such as New Rome where chariots are constantly careening down the cobblestoned streets. But Cora didn’t grow up in New Rome, and even if she had nothing could have stopped her from barrelling into the street with such an impassioned mission on her mind. And most likely nothing could have stopped the chariot that had thrown her to the ground, and certainly nothing so small and fragile as the body of a 5 foot 3 inch human. She lay there as the world began to fade, a surprising amount of thoughts making their way through her mind’s eye as worried faces began to crowd over her. Most were faces she recognized, but she couldn’t help but notice the one face that was still missing. “Lucius.” Her whispered prayer rose to the heavens above, unheard or uncared for. She had failed, and as the faces began to fade she remembered the many times the doctors had warned her to be careful with her head, how they precautioned her against continuing to lead her demigod life when she was becoming increasingly susceptible to the darker side of unconsciousness and the possibility of not waking up after finding it. The faces over her were calling to her, asking her to keep her eyes open for only a second longer, to stay awake...
— But still he was missing, and her last thought was the hope that they would let her share a room with Ben, someone had to look after him now that Lucius was gone.
