Chapter Text
Her breath is there, warm against my cheek, a broken rhythm blending with mine.
There’s no space left between us, only the weight of what we were and what we’ll never be. The embrace isn’t enough. It can’t be enough. It’s too full of pain, too heavy with guilt and silence. And yet, I can’t let it go.
Her hands tremble against my back, fingers clutching as if I’m her only anchor. And maybe I am, just as she is mine, though I don’t want to admit it. There’s anger, there’s love, there’s something too vast to be contained in words.
When I pull back, it’s not to leave. It’s to look at her. To see the secrets she hides in her eyes, dark as the bottom of an abyss I keep falling into. I don’t know if I want to drown or be saved, but I don’t look away.
“Clarke,” she says my name like a prayer, or a curse. Her voice is broken, fragile, and for a moment, I see the truth: she’s made of cracks too.
I don’t respond. I can’t. There’s nothing to say. So I let the silence wrap around us, and in the silence, it happens.
The kiss isn’t sweet. It isn’t gentle. It’s a wound reopening, a scream stifled before it can find its voice. Our lips meet like blades colliding, an explosion of anger and need that burns everything it touches.
There’s no forgiveness in that kiss, only pain. The pain of two hearts that don’t know how to beat without hurting each other. I feel her guilt in the way her hands brush my face, light as if she’s afraid of causing more harm. I feel my anger in the force with which I pull her closer, as if I want to punish her and save her all at once.
The taste of tears mixes with the earth and blood we carry, an indelible memory of what we’ve lost. And yet, in the middle of it all, there’s love too. Twisted, broken, but still alive. A love that binds us like chains but holds us up when everything else falls apart.
When we pull away, the world feels quieter. It’s not a peaceful silence, but one heavy with broken promises and possibilities we’re not sure we can accept.
“I don’t know how to move forward,” I whisper, my voice an echo of everything I can’t say.
“Neither do I,” she answers, her forehead resting against mine, her hands lingering, caught between letting me go and holding me close. “But we can try. Together.”
And in her eyes, I see a truth that hurts more than the kiss: no matter how broken we are, we belong to each other, even in our fragments.