silverfeathers
I'll visit, she had said, at the very beginning of it all. I'll come see you every day.
He'd nodded and grinned and expected nothing less.
At first she did come. She came and they laughed and when she left, it was to close the door gently behind her with a last glance back at his slumped figure on the couch, only his head visible from under the blanket that she had thrown over him. He woke in the morning to see the dazed light of the afternoon spilling through the skylight at his feet and a note taped to the top of a little paper box. "I baked cupcakes for you," he read slowly as he rubbed his tired eyes. "Take care of yourself."
The next day, it was the same, but different. They laughed about different things. She had lunch with him, but she had an important meeting to attend during dinner. The day after that, she stayed the entire day. They curled up together on the couch and watched a horror movie together. She screamed at all the right times and hid her face in his chest and then afterwards he gave her a back massage. The next day she brought him a stack of books and a new sketchbook. They painted together until the sun set and then they had a quiet dinner under the watchful moon in the backyard behind his house. She visited, she left, and the next day he woke. Day after day after day, they kept blurring into the next day and then, after that, next.
"I'm sorry, but we're pushing a new product through. I'll have to stay overtime, so I can't spend the whole day with you anymore." She told him one day, eyebrows tilted in apology. He nodded his understanding, because he wasn't a selfish person, and he knew it was unreasonable of him to expect that she would stay with him forever, because she was a person too, and she had a life beyond him.
But a little piece of him was petulant. Days became hours. She dropped in before work, during lunch, after a particularly long and boring meeting. She brought him little cakes from cafes and sprigs of pine needles.
he had her at hello.
she blinked once, twice, sharp words frozen on her tongue as he proceeded to tilt his head curiously and smile at her. slightly thrown by his greeting, she frowned and looked away with a small huff.
he waved a thin, elegant, hand in front of her face - fingers still tapered gently, she noted, slender and graceful like the rest of him. "what, you're not going to say hello back?" he said with a teasing lilt in his voice. "that's so rude."
"shut up." she remarked, but her lips were already curving into a smile. "you didn't tell me you would be back so soon."
a hand on her shoulder, a quick yank, and then she was eclipsed in his arms, face buried against the warmth of his woolen sweater. instinctively, she hugged him tight as his chin rested on the top of her head in a familiar and comforting position. she was still so much shorter than him, she noted with a sigh.
his breath tickled her hair as he spoke. "no," he said softly, "because i wanted to surprise you."
"Our fates were stapled together," she smirked. "Our lives were intertwined." Then she leaned forward and ruffled his hair reassuringly. "But I broke the curse, you know? So you die and I'll die. But if I die...you'll survive."
He shook his head frantically, his eyes widening in silent horror as he understood. "So that's why-"
She nodded and stepped back. "I came to say goodbye."
Manhattan, with its tall shivery buildings held in embraces of cold stone and silver glass, frozen in repose over the night sky and distant horizons. She loved Manhattan with its last two syllables tripping over each other on her tongue and the small personal cafes with their walls of warmth defrosting her face after a battle with the chill wind. She loved steadfast winter in Manhattan with streetlights shattering sparks over shiny stones embedded in the sidewalk asphalt, shining in rainbows against the stark black of the evening sky. She loved Manhattan in its death and its dark, and loved Manhattan all the more in its life and its light, accepting the city for what it was: a story cherished in the hearts of children, a dream crumpled at the bottom of a desolate, polluted river, a hope with wings spread against the shuttered landscape, a yearning desire to be free. Manhattan was all these things, and more.
Her face is nestled against his shoulder; she's burrowed into the warmth and safety of his embrace. She's long since stopped sniffling, and her quiet huffs and jerky movements have gradually melted away into soft and quivering breaths. Her long hair is mussed and tangled, itchy against his neck. Her tears have dried on her face, but his shirt remains wet against his skin where she'd cried on him. It's terribly uncomfortable, holding her: her weight is pressed into him and she's surprisingly heavy for someone so slender, but he wouldn't let go of her for the world.
He feels her breath flutter against his cheek and he smiles.
She's standing at the very edge: eyes focused on the churning water below, the turbulent white-capped waves that tossed and turned as if the ocean were a sleepy child caught in the throes of a terrible nightmare. It would be so easy, she thinks. It would be the easiest thing in the world: to step into that cold embrace, to let yourself sink to the very bottom, to not think. To not feel.
It would be so easy. But she steps away carefully from the edge of the cliff.
The end is near, they told her, and that was partly what enabled her to go on.
She looked them in the eye and reiterated: "I don't want to die."
Their reply was simple: "Then don't let it end."
she loved the smell and the feel and the look of blank paper. she raised her eyes from the sheet of white in front of her and breathed a happy sigh. the sky outside her window panes was foggy, with gray clouds and silver linings and a bright cerulean blue that peeked out from between the swathes of white. her whole world was here: encapsulated in a heart of content, in shifty stormy skies and the anticipation of petrichor and the faded breathless beauty of open air and freedom.
she looked back at that paper, closed her eyes. picked up her pen. she was prepared to write.
"act like civilized human beings, please." she snapped, and both boys, wearing large grins on their faces, turned to look at her.
"but that's no fun," they pouted in unison.
she hesitates- one crucial second gone. her dagger's diverted, whereas moments ago it would have buried itself deep into his chest. she shakes her head. it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter anymore, nothing matters- he'd killed the only one she'd ever loved and now it was an eye for an eye, and her world had been swallowed in ice and she felt nothing, nothing anymore except a cold burning need to see him fall.
no, she decided as she dodged his blows and retreated. death was too good for him.
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