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The air was eerily still in the wake of AJ’s revelation.
AJ screwed her eyes shut, too ashamed to see the look on Drift’s face. She waited for the outburst — anger, yelling, the rumbling of the Earth below as it shook with the force of Drift’s ire — but when she finally spoke, Drift’s voice was small and sad, void of the fire AJ surely deserved:
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
AJ looked at her in surprise and knew it had been a mistake.
She’d do anything to erase the image of the look on Drift’s face: her tear-filled brown eyes, the sad and confused furrow of her brows, the slight tremble of her pink lips.
AJ would have preferred anger.
She was good at anger. AJ could throw or take a punch like it was nothing, could handle narrowed eyes and daggered words — there was hardly a name in the book she hadn’t been called at least once, and she’d been deserving of most of them. This was something else. Something far more dangerous.
“I was going to,” AJ said, “when the time was right.” She cringed after she said it, realizing how much it sounded like a lie.
Drift shook her head sadly with a disappointed scoff. “Figures,” she muttered, “I should’ve known you weren’t ever going to be serious about this- about us. I knew it from the start and still I—” she shook her head again as if to shake away the rest of her thoughts.
“I am,” AJ pleaded, stepping toward her, “you have to believe that I am. That’s why I couldn’t tell you! I couldn’t—”
Drift took a step back and crossed her arms defensively. “Couldn’t what? Trust me enough — respect me enough — to tell me the truth? Huh? What’s the excuse this time?”
AJ faltered, hand frozen in the air as she abandoned her attempt to reach out. She let it fall to her side. “I–” she started, then stopped, the words lodged in her throat.
“Oh, so you’ve got nothing, this time?” Drift bit out, “All out of excuses, then? Should I come back later once you’ve come up with one?”
“I don’t want to be something you’re afraid of!” AJ exclaimed, tears streaming down her face.
Drift froze.
“Okay?” AJ continued, “It- it’s not an excuse, and I know that, okay? But I… I’m used to people being afraid of me. Sometimes, I even encourage it. But you? You never were — not really. And I guess I… I didn’t want that to change. I wanted to be someone that makes you feel safe, y’know?
“I didn’t want you to look at me the way so many people have and so many people still do. I guess I… I wanted to prove to myself that I’m not this... unlovable monster. I wanted to prove that I deserved the way you look at me, like… like there’s something worth looking at at all. Something worth saving. Rooting for. Trusting. Something worth… loving.”
Her voice cracked on the last word, and AJ looked away, wiping furiously at her face.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Drift said, at last, voice steady and certain. She said it, impossibly, like she meant it.
“You should be,” AJ countered, eyes cast downward, peering at her hands as if they were covered in blood.
Becore AJ could dwell on it, Drift took AJ’s hands in her own, and AJ looked up, eyes wide with shock. She hadn’t even heard Drift approach.
“There are a lot of things that scare me right now,” Drift admitted, the ghost of a smile tugging at her lips, “but you aren’t one of them.”
AJ shook her head. “But I’m dangerous, Drift,” she croaked, “my magic’s out of control. I- I hurt you!”
Drift brought one of their joined hands to AJ’s face, wiping away the rest of her tears. “But you didn’t mean to,” Drift argued, “and that’s what matters. Accidents happen, AJ. None of us can be expected to have everything figured out — look at everything that’s happening, here! It’s all chaos. And when everything is scary and confusing, when I’m afraid, I think of you. I think of coming back to you. Because you’re right: you don’t scare me, AJ. The only thing about you that scares me is the idea of losing you.”