Josh & Bee: things you said under the stars and in the grass
TITLE I AMLOCATION NOT TOO FAR AWAY FROM THEIR CURRENT CAMPSITETIMELINE AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE, AFTER THEY’VE JUST DEALT WITH A COUPLE OF BANDITSWITH JOSH SMITHTAGGING @daydreamxdaze
“My name’s Bianca.”
These were not the most ideal words that could’ve broken their silence. Anything else would’ve been better. Anything else would’ve been a much, much better conversational topic. After all, Bee and Josh weren’t exactly friends. They were much better called allies, though more on Bee’s part than on Josh’s. For all she knew, Josh could be plotting behind her. For all she knew, Josh could leave one morning and never look back. She didn’t know him, after all.
And he didn’t know her.
This was, perhaps, what prompted her to say what she did. Her name was a secret she hadn’t told anybody — not after the old campsite she escaped from tainted it with blood. Her name was a tragedy, a song she now refused to even murmur. For so long, she’d been afraid of it. For so long, she’d been afraid of the scars it might open. But she said it now. She said it now.
“Bianca Grimes.”
She wondered whether it was the near-death experience that led to this. If having experienced death made her talk, then Bianca never wanted to experience death again. But even she knew that that was an impossible wish. What she could wish for, instead, would be that someone knew her real name. So she could die with the tragedy on somebody else’s mouth. So she could die with the song of her past alive on somebody else’s lips.
For a while after the weight of her name stained the air, Bee didn’t speak. She didn’t look at Josh who laid beside her on the grass, and instead looked to the stars up above. There weren’t many, but there didn’t need to be for Bee to appreciate them either way.
When the silence settled, Bee opened her mouth again. “I just needed somebody to know,” she said. “I just needed somebody to know that I’m still here. That I’m still alive.”
TITLE THE LOVE YOU GIVELOCATION A LIT UP LITTLE SHACK ON SOME PRIVATE PART OF A BEACHTIMELINE BECK PROPOSES TO JANEWITH BECKETT GRANTTAGGING @daydreamxdaze
All fairytales began with once upon a time. All fairytales began with a princess and a prince, and was then bound by their love. Jane Monroe neither had prince nor was she a princess, and her story with Beck much more closely started with an apology than with once upon a time, but this felt something like a fairytale. No, this was a fairytale.
It wasn’t the lights, or the music, or the food. It wasn’t the atmosphere, or the crash of the waves against the shore. It wasn’t any of these things, for Jane could remove them and still live this moment. She could be sitting in her bedroom, with nothing but the silence and the dark, and still live out this story. See, all else failed to come to the foreground when the love of her life was knelt down in front of her with a ring in his hand and tears in his eyes.
Jane had only dreamt of this. When she was younger, she had imagined herself in a white gown but with nobody in particular. When she’d met Beck, she’d imagined herself walking down the aisle to meet him. And oh! Oh, she’d dreamt! To find a love that was hers and hers alone was rare — and now Beck was here, just handing it to her.
Tears formed in her eyes, so pure and so out of love that they might as well be the source of magic in every fairytale Jane had ever read. Her smile was so wide that her cheeks hurt. Her heart, so full, she was afraid it might burst from her chest.
When Beck said the four words that came with the moment, Jane nodded. Yes, her whole body seemed to say. Yes, yes, yes. And her tears fell then, just as Beck put the ring on her finger. Her tears fell, and still her whole body lit up with joy.
“I love you, Beckett Grant,” Jane said. “I love you so much.”
