More snippets related to the world this is in. Real backlogging tomorrow night, I swear.
It's easier to remember control sometimes, when she is around him. When she's close to him, it's easy to remember just how easily she could snap and break him. She has to be in control around him, has to be, because he is one thing that she will protect. He has four different kinds of green ties and he likes the one with thin silver stripes through it best, she recites to herself. His favourite colour is red and always has been and he's afraid of--
"Hey, are you okay?" And then her vision is filled with a bright smile and endlessly blue eyes.
"Fine," she says and the smile she gives in return reaches her eyes easily. Nothing is ever faked when she's around him.
"Good," he says, and throws an arm over her shoulder. She tries to ignore the way that heat spreads all through her from the points where they're touching, how just this one action has her heart beating double time. "Let's go out for lunch."
--
Everyone knows that she doesn't mean to be cruel, it's just the way that she is: careless with people that she doesn't love. And she is so careful, so selective about who she chooses to love. People count themselves lucky, to be able to say with confidence that they are friends with her. And they are lucky, because once you have earned yourself a piece of her heart, it is yours forever. There aren't many who can say they are friends with her, and there are even less who can say, with absolute certainty, that she would do anything for them. She is fiercely loyal to those she calls her own. Everyone knows that she doesn't mean to be cruel but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt to see that, for all that their group is so tightly-knit, he is the only one that she watches so carefully; that she is able to dismiss them so easily. It still hurts to see that she is careless with people who are not hers.
--
Love, you think, and then, no. Not love, never love. I love you, too, is on the tip of your tongue, because that's what you've learned to say, to say without meaning. It's what was drilled in to you: love your friends but don't love your friends. You won't--you can't say anything that she wants to hear so you don't say anything at all. Love. You think that she has no idea what love is.
--
She chokes back a sob and lurches forward, clutching at your shirt, winding her fingers in the thin material. You wonder, distantly, how long it has been. Will the others have noticed your disappearance, or will they just write it off as the two of you being you again? The thought brings a laugh burbling to your lips - you would deserve it, after night after night spent sneaking out of the bathroom window and disappearing until dawn even when it was prohibited. She helps you to stand, walksdrags the both of you on to the ledge, toes just over the edge. She sways slightly, rocking you along with her, pressing against the railing. It bites into your stomach and you reach out, fingers finding the worn, faint, barely there scratches of a melody beneath your fingertips. The city lights flash and blur as you stare blindly into them and remember.
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