Your world was only big enough for two.
You and me.
Or her and you.
The two of you, combined, made an elegant threat. A touch of cold steel to the throat. Like a razor blade nicking the skin, the cut was sharp and clean, and the blood endless.
I was never clear on where that line was—the boundary between me and you; I passed it in my haste to mean something to you, and it was only when I fell that I started looking for what had tripped me in the first place.
But I do remember the day when you glanced at me with more than indifference.
It was the day your stony face was carved with pain, white rock cracking like some sort of cursed Greek god. It was the day that you recognized me as a participant of this shared body. The day that you were weaker than me.
You didn't have to do that.
My voice was small to my own ears, faded, like an underwater whisper. It was quiet in our soul, but your head was bursting with thoughts, screeching like the serpents in Medusa's hair, making me afraid to look.
I had no choice. Your voice was cool and ancient, the unmistakable sound of a lightning crack in the desert wind. The bastard would have let you take the attack.
Perhaps you'd meant there to be venom in the way you'd spit out the word bastard, but I didn't hear it. Merely a fond scoff, like a man who couldn't believe his lover had left the stove on this morning.
I'm sorry for letting you get hurt.
Your eyes narrowed, like a griffin clenching its claws. What the hell are you sorry for?
I glanced into the whirling abyss of our mind. If I hadn't been in the way—
Suddenly, you had your hands clenched around my shoulders, descending like a vulture. Your green hair looked like grassy claws, growing, reaching to grab everything in your immediate presence. Those talons always poised for the next steal.
Why do you act like this? Your question smothered me, wrapping its slithering body around me. Why do you always act like some sort of martyr? It sickens me.
Does it? I tilted my head, unaffected by the electricity surrounding you, the way you commanded the very air around us. Or is it the fact that you care which sickens you?
Care. Your lip curled upward, as if the word was beneath you. About you?
I think for a while there you did. My tone was matter of fact, as if I was revealing a mundane fighting trick. I wanted to be as removed as possible, to avoid the ugly mistake of being hopeful.
You must be deranged, you said with careful, cutting precision, like a surgeon removing an organ, to believe I ever had feelings for you.
I had once thought these words would rip my heart out, shredding the valves and massacring my entire circulation system. Instead, the words were a pinprick against my skin—the thick skin you had grown for me—a mere needle.
Hmm, I acknowledged your lie. I wonder if you pretend with her too, or does the EM wave demand your honesty?
If you reacted at all, I couldn't tell. Perhaps a flicker of your eyelid, a twitch to betray the self-denying pretense. What were you so afraid of anyway? Feeling something other than hatred? Losing control? Perhaps you considered this all a distraction, like sweet candy to a diabetic, tempting you from your purpose? It was always the past that called you, wasn't it, and never the present?
I don't feel anything for that brat.
I had forgotten for a moment that your hands were still clenched around my shoulders, and then you tightened them, your fingers as forceful as a corkscrew. Your touch was demanding but not compelling; the only part of you I would have believed right then was your eyes. Two pinpricks of brown, slicing open my brain and dissecting my thoughts. I would have said they're the rich color of river silt, the plentiful sand along the Nile, but I wasn't from Egypt, and they didn't belong to you.
Then why are you working with her? My question dangled like a fish hook, though I knew you wouldn't be lured.
You should know by now, you scoffed. The power she has. If I have that, I'm one step closer to them. One step closer to revenge.
I smiled.
Bullshit.
The word was as foreign to your ears as it was to my tongue.
If you really only want the power, you could just steal it. It's something else, isn't it? She fascinates you. You're too reluctant to start anything, but too curious to stop.
I'd made you mad, finally. Clenching your nails around my shirt sleeves, you dragged me forward, like a monster dragging a boat into the sea, until we were nose to nose and I could smell the cracking electricity between us.
What's with the sudden interest? You spit out. You never said a word about this before. Why now?
You could probably hear it. My pulse quickening, my blood rushing like a rollercoaster car to the top. On the brink of flying off. There was nothing secretive about my attraction, despite your refusal to take notice.
Because, I wanted to hesitate, stop the hurtling words, but they came flooding anyway, I wish I could take her place.
I wish you would take over this body entirely and that I could have her's, and that you would think of me with the same fondness and lust and frustration.
I didn't say any of that. Not out loud, anyway. But the words were so vibrant in my head that I knew you could hear them.
And then you did react. For a split second you looked like me. Your clawing hair fell, as though it had been trapped in an electric field which had finally switched off. Your eyebrows unknotted, relaxing your entire face. Like a werewolf transforming to its human form, you looked innocent and calm once again.
And before I could grasp the fact that I was looking into a mirror, you grabbed my head in your hands and kissed me.
We fit perfectly. My lips on my lips and my hair in my hair. Was it wrong to be excited by this? Surely, I would drown, plunging headlong into the water, just behind Narcissus.
You even kissed like me. Slow and languorous, as though taking a long bath, you scoured each part of my mouth as if cleansing each part of my body. I opened my eyes and found mine staring back.
I placed my hands between us until you stepped back.
This is what you want, isn't it? Your eyes were lost, trying and failing to understand.
No.
I placed a hand against your chest, feeling the cotton fabric of my tee shirt.
This is what I want. But you no longer have it.
A thief stealing from a thief. How flawless, how appropriate. I don't think you even realized it was missing. It was as useful to you as an old sweater—sentimental, but entirely unnecessary.
You looked torn. As though you had never had options until now. But I had memorized your choice by heart, like a rosary that kept me sane when the world was crashing.
Sonia.
Always Sonia, always her.
A bow and an arrow, you were effective together. Lethal and potent.
She was your rosary, the one person you would spare from your own destruction.
And suddenly, I could hear her calling, descending into our mind uninvited, like a—what was that word you'd used?—parasite.
Your attention on me waned and you glanced back. I knew your intent instantly. You were still angry—Geo's attack had nearly blown you apart—and you were planning to march over there, give her a piece of your mind and a piece of your heart.
I stood back. This was my mind but your moment. You had proved something to me, and despite the mere second of your arms around me, it had been enough.
Your thoughts lingered around mine, like fireflies around a porch light, as though apologizing. Saying what your words and touches couldn't say. It has to be her. Your eyes implored me, as though asking for a blessing.
I smiled at you, my eyes cracking just slightly, and then nodded.
I knew it just as well as you. It's that your world…
...was only big enough for two.