❛ some people are so good at disappearing that you start to doubt your memories that they were ever there. ❜
a softer world / accepting.
a laugh, as light as the touch to his shoulder, escapes her but masks a bitter taste. how wry of jack it is to say such a thing to her, & she cannot help but feel a tinge of annoyance. he hid, from the world & from her. the woman always there for him, faithfully by his side. she remembers him missing in the rubble. she remembers the funeral, the empty coffin laid to rest, how she was alone. never a tear, head held high & strong, but a heart aching, begging to let it out. she never faltered, only moving forward in her solitude.
❝ a feeling i know well. ❞ she replies, hand withdrawing & smile vanishing. somber eyes avoid his gaze. he had become a ghost from her past, a fading memory. if it were not for haunting reminders of her failures, angela would have believed it to be a violent dream. one of a world where she had a family to call her own, despite the suffering she yearned to cease throughout the world. soon she had nothing save her work, & though she took great delight in it all & knew how to be alone, a piece was missing with her best friend gone. ❝ you were gone, & as soldier. you were a ghost. however, i never left when i was needed. ❞
hands fold together, her head bowed, ❝ you know what it’s like to disappear, but i know what it is like to wonder if what i remember is true. ❞ for a time, even when engulfed by her work, she could find herself wondering how much of their time together was imagined. she was never one to dream so wildly, to doubt herself, but the absence had her weary & wishful. part of her resents that, clings to it. she can let go & move past, though she may never fully forgive. however, knowing him again is elating, — even if he insists the man she knew is gone.