a hollow heart guides the way, five words igniting a flame. i wish he was you. a truth only revealed in the still of night. she’d been warned not to play with fire, heels pattering down the cobble path. on a typical night she’d swallow his memory, searching for guidance in the bottom of a bottle. though no mystical creature could grant the wish at hand, transforming another into the one she once loved. slender legs walked the familiar path, tousled locks scattered among the winds. had she struck a match upon pressing send she’d already be engulfed in flames. five words riddled within her mind, approaching the place once held sacred. a familiar shape lingered in the shadows. a silhouette she felt she’d dreamed to life. her breath hitched within her throat, scouring up the courage to proceed ahead. she’d made it thus far, she couldn’t turn back now. a small sigh escapes her lips, it was if she wished to get burned, merely a lost soul wandering home.
“i didn’t think you’d show,” another five words lie heavy on the tongue. perhaps it was her own cold feet speaking, fighting the urge to turn heels and run. she had another at home, though he smelled of daisies and she preferred roses. a small flutter in her heart made waves beneath her skin. a face as familiar as the day they parted ways. “i missed you.” audible fragments of the thoughts that lingered in his absence, ones that’d consumed her many nights. “i just needed to see you again.”
her words are ice, even though the weather’s already warm and there’s no malice hidden between letters. it sends a chill down his spine all the same and abel has to work tirelessly in the four seconds it takes his eyes to lift from the ground to her face to keep himself still, keep his hands where they hang lamely at his sides and his two thumbs barely tucked beneath the seam of his front pockets. ( because reaching out for her would be too much, giving in to the itch at the center of his palms to feel her skin beneath his fingertips again would be like a drug. ) he wonders if it was practiced, if she’d spent fragments in between the days and nights they’d spent apart rehearsing what she’d say to him, how she’d manage to get beneath his skin in as little as three words. ─ it works, regardless. if abel had any prior hope that he’d make it out of this rendezvous alive, that’s long gone now.
asking why isn’t an option ; abel doesn’t want to think any more about the hands that have tangled fingers in her hair nor the lips that now call the divot of her collarbone home. and playing coy would only exploit himself for the fool that he was. because abel was still the same, even as the weeks turned into months, his nights were still entrapped by the memory of her and his clothes still clung to the scent of that one night she’d traded in her own clothes for them. it paints him pathetic and he doesn’t have the stamina to survive that conversation. “ i missed you too, ” he says instead. because somehow that’s better. somehow that feels more safe. with a flick of his tongue, abel’s even managing a faux humor over syllables. “ surprised you came, actually. i mentally prepared to be stood up. ”
