And if the sun grows cold for you along the wayLochlan is burning down the world as he goes. Outwardly clipped and formal, inwardly afraid as the dark sees him holding me clutched against him, securing my place in his dreams, loathe to let go in case I leave him in the night. He says he's fine. We're fine. Everything's fine.
And if the stars don't line to light the way
And when you fall away and crash back down below
I'll search the skies for you and I'll follow
I'll be in your afterglow
And I'll bring you home
But he's not telling the truth.
I tuck his hair behind his ears. He's sitting so patiently, just staring at me. Loathe to open Pandora's box. Loathe to give a name to that fear. Loathe to let it consume him, unable to see that it already has, even as I dismiss it as shallow, unfounded, unreasonable. Trite.
That's not a fear. THIS is a fear. And I reach up, opening first my skull, wide enough for everything to see the light of day. And this too, I pull my ribcage apart and my heart does a flip-flop out of my chest onto the floor, a caught fish landing in a boat, still hoping against hope for escape. The dark rushes in, putting out the flames, protecting our eyes from the volume of blood, softening the horror of all that I am in his eyes, or so I can only hope.
It seems like nothing to you but it consumes me. It's so easy for you to say your pain hurts more but it can't hurt more than this, Bridge. The fear that you might fall in love again and it still won't be me.
But it is you, and I fall in love with you all over again, every single day.