'Why are y'always surroundin' yourself with the dead?'
Everything you love dies.
and you are such a stupid girl.
(You couldn't save a one of them.)
Fool!
She rocks his spiritless shell, aware that she's crying only when she tastes saltwater on her tongue. There's a moment when you just know. Palpable and sobering. A silence falls between friends unbidden when there's an angel flying overhead. That kind of creeping, out-of-body place, the kind of place you only half-remember, like dreams that crumble through your fingers. It's the same kind of place, that moment, when a heart stops beating.
And then.
She gasps for air, rain sucking down her lungs and turning to mud beneath her. The mud reaches up, sticky tendrils, crawling, squirming, slithering around her body, tying her like rope, squeezing her like a vice, trapped, chained, pain like she's never known and
Animal instincts lash out -- survival -- she pushes Ben's body away and flies backwards and breathes. Air has never tasted so sweet, so fresh, so cold. Walleyed, she lies in the mud and stares -- but it wasn't the mud at all that squeezed at her insides.
It was...
It was
It was.
Her eyes are fixed on the puddles of dirty blue water beneath him. Grass recedes, like tall men drowning in shallow water. A bird falls from a nest, dead. She can hear leaves shaking, everywhere a cacophony, a deafening roar like she's never heard before, and the words he'd spoken to her that day before he left hit her like cannon fire.
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She's scared.
She's more terrified than she's felt before.
And she is completely resigned.
She crawls on hands and knees and gathers him back up in her arms, pressing her supple body against his, wrapping him up tight. She buries her face in his shoulder, and holds her breath.
no subject
no one
no one but you, Kate.
'Why are y'always surroundin' yourself with the dead?'
Everything you love dies.
and you are such a stupid girl.
Fool!
She rocks his spiritless shell, aware that she's crying only when she tastes saltwater on her tongue. There's a moment when you just know. Palpable and sobering. A silence falls between friends unbidden when there's an angel flying overhead. That kind of creeping, out-of-body place, the kind of place you only half-remember, like dreams that crumble through your fingers. It's the same kind of place, that moment, when a heart stops beating.
And then.
She gasps for air, rain sucking down her lungs and turning to mud beneath her. The mud reaches up, sticky tendrils, crawling, squirming, slithering around her body, tying her like rope, squeezing her like a vice, trapped, chained, pain like she's never known and
Animal instincts lash out -- survival -- she pushes Ben's body away and flies backwards and breathes. Air has never tasted so sweet, so fresh, so cold. Walleyed, she lies in the mud and stares -- but it wasn't the mud at all that squeezed at her insides.
It was...
It was
It was.
Her eyes are fixed on the puddles of dirty blue water beneath him. Grass recedes, like tall men drowning in shallow water. A bird falls from a nest, dead. She can hear leaves shaking, everywhere a cacophony, a deafening roar like she's never heard before, and the words he'd spoken to her that day before he left hit her like cannon fire.
She's scared.
She's more terrified than she's felt before.
And she is completely resigned.
She crawls on hands and knees and gathers him back up in her arms, pressing her supple body against his, wrapping him up tight. She buries her face in his shoulder, and holds her breath.
Take it.
Take it all.