be gentle ;; coriander&lucy
If there was one emotion that Coriander had never been able to wrap his head -- or his heart -- around, it was hate. He had thought he felt it when he was in the cult and he saw what those people did to his sister, but that turned out to just be the unprocessed byproduct of agony. What he felt for Lucy was the same. He knew he had no claim to her, that they weren’t official and the pain in his chest was perhaps not quite as valid as he hoped; at the very least, it was not enough to justify trapping himself in the unbearable loneliness that Lucy had been an escape from.
After the gala, his nightmares had only gotten worse and sleep deprivation only made his usual stress and anxiety skyrocket. He grew careless in his pain, unsure of what to do or where to go as his heart begged him not to forgive her. It would only hurt him, the unsteady beating warned him as tired muscles still struggled to recover from all the heartbreak he had never deserved. His head, for once, agreed with his heart, but there was a part of him that was neither head nor heart. It was soul and it was desperate for something that only Lucy had given him.
So he shoved aside all sense that told him the pain he felt at the sight of her face was a warning and made his way to her house. He told himself -- in the plainest language he could manage -- that he would leave if it wasn’t her who opened the door. If it was Clara or Tyler or anyone else, then he would turn around and never come back, but if it was Lucy that stood there, his heart would be in his hands. And so it was as he knocked on the door, bottom lip caught between his teeth as he waited to see if it would be healed or simply torn apart once more.