mooncharted:
“oh, don’t kick yourself out just ‘cause i’m here.” daphne raises her eyebrows, wondering if there’s an i’m sorry written in the falling of his face. it’s not fair that he has such an effect on her, not fair that she can’t completely cut herself free from the tangled knot they’ve found themselves in; none of her previous relationships ever hurt this much. she didn’t care as much.
is it ( a ) the ache of things that could have been? ( b ) hurt pride? ( c ) a new beginning ending far too quickly? or ( d ) all of the above?
it’s all fun and games with daphne until it’s not, and perhaps her first mistake was letting herself get caught up in him because he was so good to her. because he made her feel safe and loved and beautiful.you were here first, she doesn’t say, i was just grabbing something. she’s not in the mood to defer to him. “this space is for everyone, yeah?” she says instead. “it’s not like we have to talk. it’s not like you have anything to say to me,” she pauses, lifting her gaze from her phone and looking directly at him, “right?” there is a plea threaded in that one word, a challenge to say the unsaid.
his first heartbreak is still a vivid memory: he’s eleven year’s old and his mother chooses the sky over her son. "when you get older,” she’d said to him, “you’ll understand.” but he never did. theodore chua has never learned what it felt to fall out of love, no heartbreak has ever felt like a fire fizzling out; they’d all been explosions: quick, loud, and unbearably painful. no, he learned nothing from his mother. all ilse ever taught him was how to run from grief before it caught him -- there is no point in chasing happiness when happiness never lasts.
( hypothesis: a future with you would be unbearable.
experiment: leave.
conclusion: a present without you is worse. )
he had ran from grief but grief still caught him. daphne moon is a girl - slash - nicotine rush and he doesn’t know how to quit her. he looks at her and sees all that they could have been. all the happiness he’d denied them both. sharp anger rises from the pit of his stomach. “do you want to talk?” he says, voice pointed. part of him is aware of how he’s coming across, aware he shouldn’t be so harsh when daphne hadn’t done anything wrong, except the part that holds all pent-up fury against himself demands release. “fine. talk. say what the fuck it is you want to say. it’s not going to change my fucking mind.”
