@perfectsonnets ct’d from here
She’s less alone now than she’s been for years, less alone here in this cheap apartment she wants to hate than she’s been on the slopes of the Alps, in the streets of Paris or by the river in Phnom Penh--she can’t hate it, though, because it smells like him. And right now, just the two of them with the sun streaming through the windows, she can almost pretend that she never lost him, that they’re still meant to be.
She takes the mug he offers, wrapping her hands around it like it could somehow keep her warm, knows it’s going to be the same dishwater he drank in college no matter how many artisan roasts she bought him and sips it anyway.
“Your coffee is worse than your beer. Have I taught you nothing?” Elektra keeps her voice light, pretends she doesn’t hear the ache in his voice when he answers her, pretends she doesn’t know how badly she hurt him all those years ago.
“It means you still haven’t learned, Matthew. Maybe that expensive education paid off less than I thought.” She reaches out, lays a hand on the side of his face, and she’s as lost as she’d been that night in Roscoe Sweeney’s mansion, blood rushing in her ears, the heart she was never supposed to have pleading see me, choose me--
“Do you ever think it could have been different? For us?”