i think i will fall forever
She opened her eyes
The lights flashed by in the darkness, one two three, and then nothing, just the rocking and shaking of a train shuddering over the rails, and then one two three again, the brightness as sudden as a gunshot.
He lay beside her, and although the sound of raspy breath was in the air, he was still and quiet and she looked at him and wondered why and why not.
She searched in her pockets until she found a coin, and when she flicked it, it spun upwards and then fell, down, down, down, and she caught it and looked at it and the flash of a harp caught her eye as one two three and she had to close her eyes against the gold and disappointment.
She never dreamed without a gun beside her, and this was no different.
"It's not real," she told his body, and the conviction in her voice was total.
She picked it up, picked up the gun, and she looked at him and she walked away, to the far end of the train so that if he was truly sleeping she would not wake up and she waited again for the one two three before she
saw him over the edge of her sketchpad, which seemed sweet and vaguely romantic. He seemed like the kind of person she'd want to draw – all sharp angles and shadows, planes and relief and he had the palest eyes of anyone she had ever seen.
The water was so very still in the canal, and the rain that fell could do nothing to disturb it, so calm and peaceful was the world.
The boat was wreathed in moss and ivy, but she cut them away and set the boat drifting anyway, so that it spun silently in the canal and she could stare at the sky as the sun fell, down, down, down beneath a horizon that swallowed it whole.
His smile was like nothing she had ever seen, and it was infectious. The boat spun and the world spun against it and they were the only still things in the entire world for a few brilliant, silent moments.
The woods underfoot was warped by footprints and layered in dust, and cracks crept across the walls like thieves, slender as a hair.
He threw a red apple in the air and it flew for the briefest moment and then it fell, down, down, down, and he
The cracks in the wall had spidered their way upwards, she had noticed, upwards and outwards and across and when she touched it she could feel the paint flake beneath her finger and feel the cool stone beneath her hand and feel the thrum of music downstairs and didn't that count?
The water shuddered and roiled beneath the boat.
She noticed that too.
"It's not real," she told his body, and the conviction in her voice was total.
He was scared for her.
Even when she started falling, he was scared for her.
She had never drawn these, and she ripped out the pages rather than admit the truth because he was beside her and smiling and the stars were just coming out and the cracks were spreading.
caught it, and she had never seen an apple so bright, the color of emeralds, and he had bitten into it and she had looked away.
She knew it was true when she looked into the mirror and saw her brother staring back.
But she could feel the wind against her hair, and the sun against her skin, and the bells tolling twelve beneath her feet, and when she looked over the edge, her heart beat one two three one two three and didn't that count?
"Please," she said. "Please, please, please."
He had very dark hair and very dark eyes, and she had gone to his table rather than he to hers and when she sat down he had just looked up at her and smiled and that was that and that was all it had ever been.
"Please," she said. "Don't make me."
The boat spun without passengers, without slowing, ceaselessly.
He would have come with her if her brother hadn't held him back while she jumped.
She fell, down, down, down, further than it should have been possible to fall, and the world opened up around her so that she could fall further, and she didn't even feel it, not a bit, when it all came to a shuddering, absolute, sudden