Deep River
I love you.
She fell into a deep river of hopelessness, her world now nothing but a whipping flurry of sharp edges and glistening silver blades. Her hair was down, the tightly wound buns of her childhood and joys lost to an unraveled mess of cascading dirt brown. She had always been plain, often forgotten, constantly pushed aside in light of the girls who shone brighter. Now she was empty, and it was so much worse than all her previous pains added up and multiplied together and piled mercilessly onto her shoulders. She'd never been granted a past; those blank memories had never surfaced, and unlike many of her peers she was never plagued nor tethered to parts of life long gone. She simply focused on the present. But now she didn't even have a future.
I always have.
How long was always? It was as long as endless hours of training, as long as sunrises and sunsets, as long as a heartbeat and a lifetime. It reached as far as her impeccable aim, as far as his gently teasing words and confident smirk, as far as the universe and back. It ate her from the inside out; it was her very past, present, and future. As quickly as always had lasted, it had been cruelly snatched away. But she would always cling onto her always. What else did she have?
Did you love me?
She fought to keep her head above the rushing deadly waters, cold like a million daggers against prickling skin, like icy needles that pierced clear through her very being, drawing blood. The irony amused her. She slashed back only to search for her answer. It was the single, one-worded answer to an infinity of questions. All she wanted, all she needed was to know.
And why did I choose you?
But that's not how it went. That was the one thing she did know. She had never chosen him. He had chosen her. It had never, ever been up to her. Just as her budding feelings had never, ever been her own choice.
It hurts.
She mulled silently, her mind wandering to recent demands of, "C'mon, stop being so emo," and sympathetic, pitying looks. And she choked.
Oh, never mind.
Frozen hands pulled her under.
Just take me.
-Fin-