I keep it under glass, bright lights keeping it from growing, shrivelled and dry in the glare. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to throw a shadow if it had the strength anymore. I'll let it wither, requited just enough to keep it alive. I will make it suffer, and along with it, him. Humane? No. Deserved?
Yes.
I took that heart and I won't let it have any darkness any more. He came back with open arms and a plan and all the money in the world and then some. So much. Lochlan used to say we had nothing and so we have everything (ironically biblical, that) and Caleb came back to say everything was a phone call or a whim away and here, do that instead and bring everyone but I'm coming too and it will be okay. The gang's back together again.
And mostly it is okay.
Growing pains, that's all. Asher's arrival was so understated, it was bound to eventually blow up, boil over and melt down. The point is a forge and our emotions are weapons and the more tears I cry, the more bullets lodge in their flesh. The more victims I collect. The more hearts I break, only they get to keep theirs to regenerate and do it all again.
But Asher stays.
I watch Caleb sleep, the night long behind us now, the reluctant permission to make it up to me, the assurances, promises and plans. The lies we all recognize for their easy deployment and the peace in his slumbering expression now.
I said I was okay but no one believes me. I said I wasn't but somehow they didn't believe that either.