‘ you deserve to be with someone who appreciates and who gets how funny and sweet and amazing and adorable and sexy you are. ’
for what felt like the first time since they met, the balance between them is lopsided, their faithful equilibrium squandered. even when their words were dripping with venom & the very sight of him pushed the shard of grief in her chest deeper, they still revolved around one another in parallel motions, venus & mars operating on the same gravitational pull, bitter understanding still just that : understanding. it wasn’t acknowledged, either out of ignorance or pretense, but it still marked their every interaction, highlighting the red thread connecting one soul to another. through grief, anger, friendship, love; they were the scale that never tipped. but now ? she feels as if she’s falling off completely.
& that almost hurts more than his words, both the morning after the party & now, different as they may seem. she felt as if the world as she knew it was crumbling & making itself anew around her, spinning out of control at a speed she stumbled behind. to survive, you had to hold on. & hold on she did, both arms reaching out with a desperation that physically ached. yet the anchor of him, of them, the tether she chafed her palms on, was suddenly pulled out from under, leaving her blind in the chaos. he stepped off the seesaw, & she flew towards the sky, a tragic icarus who sculpted her own demise, right from the very beginning when she allowed the seed of milan bianco to root in her heart.
they had spent so long being cowards, both with others and each other, that that one night of liberation felt like the first in which she could breathe, lungs free to laugh & dance & exhale. but here she stood before him once again, choking under a weight so heavy that if she buckled, she would be buried beneath it all.
❝ are you drunk again ? i wouldn’t want to get the wrong idea. ❞
yet nothing that he said, or had callously done, was enough to erase the memory of that fateful night beneath the stars, of him before her, his heart bared for her insatiable eyes. she couldn’t trust his words, for most of what he said was disengaged with what he thought, the route from his heart to his head to his mouth blemished with tar. so while they pained her like a hundred lashes to her naked heart, the thing she truly grieved was being left behind him. but still she tries, a plea she prays he can hear under the thickness of his resolve.
❝ you know, you say that, as if i’m some poor girl you’re entertaining for a laugh, when we both know that’s bullshit. you don’t get to tell me what i deserve, but what i want is you ⏤ what i need is you, but i need you to need me back. ❞ she can’t even look him in his eyes, not when she’s afraid of what she might see reflected back & what might be different from that night. ❝ but i’m not gonna beg again. ❞ every inch of her yearns to fold her tired being in the safety of his arms, but she only dares to bring her hand up to palm his cheek, an echo of gesture on the rooftop. only half her world, but she doesn’t reach out with her second hand, only drops her first & walks away before a heart - wrenched please escapes as she succumbs to the choking sensation in her throat.
