[Until now, she's never considered the possibility of this. Seeing him again. Hearing his voice in her ear. Feeling the comforting warmth of his arms around her, the same warmth that got her through so many nights, so many horrors in that arena. No, she could never have afforded to consider it. Even if he wasn't dead, even if she'd keep fighting hard to keep him alive, there was never a guarantee of how long that'd last. ...
But the boy with the bread has not yet slipped away.
She feels something start to break inside of her. A thin thread solely responsible for holding her together, for preventing her from coming apart at the seams, slowly begins to unravel. The wall, the pillar of all her pseudo-strength, threatens to crash to the ground and crumble to dust. She tries for a steadying breath, but there's a profound hitch in it she can't suppress. There's something stinging in her eyes that's not easily blinked back.
There are no words with which to respond, even if she weren't disadvantaged in that area already. Maybe in another lifetime, such an admission would've garnered a much different response out of her; a rolling of the eyes, that old stab of guilt and awfulness whenever he alluded to anything sentimental. But now, it just causes her to cling to him more tightly, as tightly as she possibly can. To shut out the world around her for a while.
NO I'M SLOWEST
But the boy with the bread has not yet slipped away.
She feels something start to break inside of her. A thin thread solely responsible for holding her together, for preventing her from coming apart at the seams, slowly begins to unravel. The wall, the pillar of all her pseudo-strength, threatens to crash to the ground and crumble to dust. She tries for a steadying breath, but there's a profound hitch in it she can't suppress. There's something stinging in her eyes that's not easily blinked back.
There are no words with which to respond, even if she weren't disadvantaged in that area already. Maybe in another lifetime, such an admission would've garnered a much different response out of her; a rolling of the eyes, that old stab of guilt and awfulness whenever he alluded to anything sentimental. But now, it just causes her to cling to him more tightly, as tightly as she possibly can. To shut out the world around her for a while.
She won't be the first to let go.]