Chapter Text
“Don’t you get sick of it?”
A simple question roused by years of timid courage and self-deprecation, still the flames haunt and linger.
All the air in the room suddenly evaporates as the words leave your lips, a deafening silence rings deep into your ears. Her eyebrows knot together at the sudden proclamation.
She licks at her lips anxiously, her phone thrown to the side in haste.
“Sick of what?”
There’s an almost illicit torment that lingers deep in her eyes, whispered ghosts that only now you can pick out.
The vacant almost dream-like stare she had whenever you two were together. The maddening whispers of dreams or nightmares.
You couldn’t tell.
Your breathing falters for but a second, deciding to take a sip of your hot chocolate. It’s like a livewire in your heart, frayed and deadly.
Waiting for the one mistake that could end you. It’s dangerous the way you dance around it even as sparks fly and bloom in your chest.
You’re just glad it’s only a slight struggle to breathe.
You remembered the honeyed secretive glances you’d send her way, with the slightest hope that maybe, just maybe she’d return it.
Why she always chose to spend her birthday with you, you’d never know.
You pull a faked practised smile from the pocket of your heart, brushed with a teasing shimmer.
“This? I mean surely you have cooler people to hangout with by now at least?”
There’s the slightest hint of a pout that mars her face, only now do you catch the fading glimmers of her shiny glass-like eyes. Worry quickly drains from her face.
There’s a release of a previously tensed breath from her.
Her fingers card through her dark hair, how long had it been since it was last that colour?
Too long.
Her lips part before she struggles on her words, there’s a lingering glare that burns at your skin.
“You had me worried there.”
There’s a slight huff of air that escapes your lips, blooming into a smile not so faked.
“Why?”
There's a roll of her eyes, poised and deadly. But even you know it’s a shield rather than a dagger.
“You’re my best friend, yet it almost felt like a breakup for a second.”
That livewire in your heart sparks once more at her words, surged with hopes, aspirations and dreams long since passed.
If only .
Still, your mind remains fixated on the deathgrip her phone had on her, a prevalent lingering presence whenever you hangout.
You felt more akin to a showpiece, rather than a friend.
Still, you had nothing real to offer expect passing commentary and not so funny jokes. There is only so often someone can have porridge before they get sick of it.
Your eyes scan the cafe, grey and boring. No wonder she asked you to come along, a bitter mirror of the reflection you cast in her eyes.
The words wrangle past your lips before you can catch them, eyes too focused on bland meaningless art.
“ Now, that’s a thought.”
Your eyes widen at the sharp knife that had slipped past your lips.
A door best left unopened, a door you had left unopened and unspoken.
Her eyes narrow against yours, there’s the tightening glimmer of anger, twisted with baleful annoyance.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
It meant you should’ve just kept your stupid mouth shut, of course you couldn’t keep a promise even to yourself.
You’d taken solace in your friendship even in the shadows of your wants.
Even if part of you hungered for more with a desperate plea, to feel the brush of skin held tight against yours. To feel the bubble of her laughter every morning.
To be the one who made her smile so blissfully.
Your words catch against your throat, caught like a sweater amongst the cogs of machinery.
“A-sorry, I didn’t mean to say it like that,” your fingers pull close to your temples massaging as deep as they can for a punctuated lie. “I haven’t gotten much sleep lately.”
A half-truth at best.
Her features soften almost instantly, you feel the brush of her hand against your knee, there’s the ghost of a lingering frown that plays at the edge of her lips.
“How come?”
Could you bear the burden of another soured lie?
Restless nights had dotted your life stars in the night sky, a recent burden admittingly. The grindstone of life having worn you down was an easy lie.
“You.”
Words you don’t speak, too weak willed. Scared the livewire in your heart would be an unfortunate combo with flooded angst and depression should things go wrong.
“Anxiety.”
Another half truth, enough to make a paired full truth.
And a full lie.
Her cheeks puff, eyes lingering against yours. There’s a whispered warmth as her grip tightens, still your mind begs and reels for the real thing.
Her lips scrunch together.
“I’m always here for you.”
You fight against the gnarled edges of your mind that beg to claw and bite at her, to point with a poisoned touch at her phone’s constant companionship.
“I know.”
A truly barbed lie that cuts and bleeds at your heart even before it escapes your lips. Your words are soft and almost broken.
You catch her eyes as her frown tugs and pulls at every broken shard in your voice, there’s the slightest quiver at the heavy weight.
Her eyes linger across the cafe before returning to you.
“Why don’t we just chill at your place?”
Your safe place.
It’s the slightest heartwarming glimmer of the way things used to be nestled in the warmth of your apartment passing time watching movies and playing board games.
A time before her enthrallment in recent months.
You wince almost at her words even as her grip tightens once again.
A beleaguered sigh.
“I’m sure that’s no way to spend your birthday.”
There’s a soft smile, the crackle of the first sparks of wood and fire.
“It’s my birthday.”
There’s always a certain grip she has over you, an enthrallment with limitless power when her focus is solely on you. Your loneliness almost feels like the discarded echoes of a past life in the wake of her warmth.
Your struggles melt away against her touch, a whispered smile echoes across your lips at her lingered gaze. Heat echoes through your chest, reparation.
“Let me just pay up and we’ll head out.”
You swear you can almost feel the slightest hint of a bounce in her, an unseen happiness that radiates.
Best not to read too deep into it.
“I can pay.”
It was her birthday after all, plus it’d make for the almost criminal negligence in not getting her a gift. A fact you’d safely managed to skirt so far.
Though you’d originally planned to cut her out of your life.
It’s almost an afterthought at this point.
“Don’t worry, a friend gave me a coupon.”
There’s a certain bounce to the way the word rolls off her tongue that nauseates your soul, a deluge of water floods through your chest, a heavy cold sinking feeling.
An anchor that dredges the depths.
Your eyes catch against her phone, the live wire in your heart sparkles with a dangerous allure, begging for the grasp of your hand, sullen and weak.
You were sick of it all.