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“Are you going to say anything to me?” she asked. There was no break in her voice. Not anymore. Weariness had hardened her heart. Again, she asked, “Anything at all?”
If he could say anything then she wouldn’t be leaving. He owed her a goodbye as much as he owed her his silence.
“I don’t get you,” she said.
He imagined her nose and lip twitching in judgement. There was no power that could make him look to see.
“Maybe that’s it,” she pressed on. He heard the shaking thuds of her continued packing grow more fervent. “Maybe I never got you.”
He had to bite down on his tongue not to refute her.
Jester understood him so deeply that he felt naked before her eyes. Which was why he couldn’t look at her. Which was why he couldn’t speak. She would get it without him even coming close to saying it. And then she would stay.
She finished packing in silence. Silence, now, was all they would share. Not a bed, or a bath, or a life. Nor would they share the weight of his sins; the rotten edges of his soul he’d never been able to separate from the rest.
There was creaking on the floorboards; down the stairs. He tried not to flinch and hoped that she resented him enough to not linger on this. There was far too much world out there for her to enjoy without the stink of him following her around.
The front door slammed below and his eyes could be trusted again. Blinking the world back into focus, his gaze flew around the bedroom. It spoke of their life together. His books had fallen into one another, untidy gaps between where her books had been. The sheets were floral (her request) and each bedside table hosted a lamp for reading or drawing. Ink stains splattered the wooden surface of her table. Ink ingrained fingerprints scattered his. There was an uncanny tidiness to his things. He’d not had the mind or heart to study for some time. For the first time in a long time, there was a thin layer of dust on his ink well.
The wardrobe was still open with a few pieces of hers still hanging. There were things she didn’t want to take with her back home, she’d told him just days before. Some of them were too worn or no longer her style. Others were sown heavy with memories of him.
He’d told her it was fine, that he would find a place which might make use of them – perhaps a charitable cause. In a way, that would justify the pain, or at least turn the break into something not wholly awful. He did not say the last part aloud, however, and the first part, where he said it was fine, that was the last thing he said to her before he lost all resolve.
Two strides brought him to a light yellow sun dress. She’d worn it that day in Rosohna when the seasons had just begun to turn. His coat had been buttoned right up and the sight of her bare arms and legs made him shiver. With a biting laugh, she’d surged up on her toes, pulling him into an unreasonably tight hold. She’d laughed and he’d blushed and then they’d kissed until he was shivering so much, he thought he’d burn from it.
The dress crumpled between his pale, death-like fingers. He held it up to his face, dampening the fabric with his tears.
A shaky laugh escaped him as he said, to nobody in particular, “I’ll keep this one.”