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Edith frowns at the screen.
"It doesn't say that we'll both be reborn in the same world," she says finally, reluctantly. Even that much of an admission makes her feel strangely vulnerable, like she's confessing some deeply held secret. She doesn't look Rhyse in the eye, just keeps staring at the screen. "I didn't wait five years just for nothing."
Five years, ten years, an eternity. Who knows, any longer? Edith tells herself she's long since lost track of the time.
She'd been very good at lying to herself, once.
Slim, warm fingers wrap around her own. Rhyse has barely let go of her hand since first taking it, and Edith doesn't feel like pretending it bothers her. She finds herself looking down at the tight clasp of their knuckles, because she doesn't want to look at those words again.
DO YOU CHOOSE TO START A NEW LIFE?
Rhyse gives her hand a squeeze, and Edith pointedly looks back up at the screen.
Still, after a moment, she finds herself returning the pressure.
"It doesn't matter what world I end up in, Edith," Rhyse says.
Edith feels her spine stiffen a little. Somehow, that make it easier to finally look at Rhyse. When she does, it's to find Rhyse staring back up at her, eyes like violets in the spring.
She wonders. Would violets feel as soft and gentle against the palm of her hand as Rhyse's touch does right now? She'd once told herself she hated the simple flower, and that its scent made her stomach turn. Now, she wonders if Rhyse's hair is soft, too, and her mouth.
"Are you that eager to get away from me already?" Edith asks, holding her chin high. Stupid. It had been stupid of her to wait. Maybe if she hadn't, she might have finally won, for once. She might have come out first, and taken hold of something for herself before Rhyse ever could. She might have gone on to a new life and left Rhyse lingering in the old.
The thought makes her feel hollow. She tells herself it doesn't.
Rhyse smiles, and Edith would look away if it didn't feel like losing something. She should be used to losing things by now; why does it feel like one more loss will be the end of it all?
"It doesn't matter, because whatever world you're reborn in, I'll love you anyway," Rhyse says. Her smile doesn't falter for an instant. "I'll find you, Edith. I promise—I'll wait life after life until I find you again."
Edith finally tears her gaze away and turns back to the screen. She hadn't thought this would be so difficult. So many years of waiting in this place, and now she finds she's not sure she can bring herself to leave it. She wonders what will happen if she refuses to make the choice. Will she simply stay here in this undefined space forever?
Will Rhyse stay with her—the Rhyse who deserves more than anything to move on?
The Rhyse who believes that Edith deserves to move on?
Edith raises her hand, and lets her fingers hover over the screen. She doesn't know if she's ever felt more scared in her life.
DO YOU CHOOSE TO START A NEW LIFE?
"Do you promise?" she asks, and she tells herself that she'll believe whatever Rhyse tells her, this time. She's spent lifetimes not believing.
Perhaps this, in the end, is how she is meant to begin learning to love. She'll trust in Rhyse, and she'll trust in herself.
"I promise," Rhyse says again, and Edith makes her decision.
She touches the screen, and her fingers don't tremble.