All the Wrong Reasons
by Jaclyn // musicnotej@aol.com
08.26.03
*
Wesley gets her a birthday present wrapped in ribbons and shiny white paper made to look like taffeta. Lilah is oddly delighted and stuns herself with the depth of her reaction.
She strokes his cheek. "There are so many things I'll never say to you." It's a soft murmur. Hesitant but giving. She's learned so many things from him without even realizing it.
"I know," he replies; and covers her hand with his own to soften the unvoiced "Good." in his eyes.
Wesley doesn't love her. Lilah knows this, and she doesn't resent him for it. It's not his fault. She doesn't love herself either.
She kind of wishes, sometimes, that she could be different, that she could be the kind of person he would want to lose himself in. For she knows he does -- lose himself, that is, but it tugs at him. He is guilty, anxious, jumpy. She is cold, callous, sharp in all the wrong places. And needy, in secret.
And now Wesley is becoming affectionate. She appreciates it for what it is: she dragged him, kicking and screaming, to the surface when he was drowning, and now he's going to try to save her too. So yes, she appreciates the strange, foreign kindness, but Lilah is nothing if not a hard, hard realist.
She doesn't pretend. Wesley strokes her hand, and it means nothing.
END