She'd love to be that girl (his girl, the girl) but fate or something equally cruel has other ideas, and she can't do anything about it.
She catches him watching her from across the room, and for the one moment that their eyes are connected, she is that girl. Those blueblueblue eyes are kind and loving and perfect and she has all she ever wanted (needed) staring right at her. But then one of them looks away, or maybe both of them do, and the truth sinks in. There is no perfection here.
He catches her, literally, and the world is quiet and it's loud and it's on fire for the seven seconds he has his arm hooked around her waist. They both pretend they don't realize she could've easily regained her balance in five (or four, three, two or one) and instead decide to savorthelittlethings.
He brushes a strand of hair away from her face, and for a moment they're dancing in the flames (they don't even mind the burn), but then he walks away and maybe it never-even-happened.
She doesn't know how to help. She does know how to drink.
The room is spinning and it just keeps spinning, so she thinks that it'd be a wise decision to take a seat in one of the more stationary chairs (where is she, anyway?). Unfortunately, the chairs are too fast for her (or is she moving in s.l.o.w. m.o.t.i.o.n. again?), so she picks out a nice, comfy looking spot on the carpet and drops to the floor as gracefully as she can.
Which, of course, isn't very graceful at all.
For a second she's dead, way too dead to be alive - but then someone is lifting her up (toohightoohigh but not really high at all) and What?Sheisonacouch? before she can even pass out. She's looking at the ocean, but there's two of them (and all of a sudden it's: I am way too drunk to be dead), and then she's drifting and drowning and swimming in sleep.
She's sees things a little more clearly in the morning, but she feels farfar from the ocean.
He's asking her where have you been? and do you want to get yourself killed? but she's not hearing any of it. This is the end, the really-real-end, and there is nothing she can do about it. The sun will set and the moon will rise and she nor he nor anyone else that matters will see it. They'll all disappear somewhere along the way.
She wants to spend that day like it's the last day (because it is the last day) but he won't let her. He plans and organizes and there-will-be-no-giving-up (she very-much-certainly-has already).
The light disappears beneath the horizon and there's pounding on the door and a window-or-a-hundred shatter and this-is-it this-is-it this-is-it until she opens her eyes and the light is back over the horizon again.
He's there and he's okay and she's so glad but no matter how much she wants to be that girl for him, she just can't, and she just isn't, so she moves out of his arms and into his brother's and it feels right (and so wrongwrongwrong).
He helps her friend (who gives him brain aneurisms)stand up rather than watch them.
She can see him sitting there, there, where he always is, but it's not right. The fire is out, his glass is empty (he may as well have no glass at all) and the room is warm but the air feels like ice on her skin and hiseyesarefrozenover. She says his name but it's not what he wants to hear and no matter how much she wants to tell him (tell him it, that, e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.) over-and-over-and-over, she can't. She won't lie to him.
A minute later he is alone and she is alone and he's still staring into nothing and she's still trying to give him something to look at (but she can't force feelings, even on herself). This one time, she wishes she were more like her doppelganger after all.
Irony twists like a knife.
The next time she sees him is Family Night, and he grins and smirks and waggles his eyebrows because pretending everything is alright is what he does. What they do. He hands her a dish to dry off but moves before his fingers can brush hers.
She regrets that all she can do is almost love him.