"I was important to you, wasn't I?"
It hurt how he remembers all of it and she remembers none.
He was so so sure that he was in the right place—that this was the universe that he had grown up in for all his life. His home.
This place is all he has. All that he remembers. And it hurt him that the only place he has left believes him an imposter. A stranger. It hurt, to not have a place that considered him important, integral, special.
To not have her.
He turns, looks back around to catch her eyes in his gaze.
It's the first time that he sees the black pupils in her emeralds. She had always been looking away, off to the side, down to the ground, straight through his body. As though she was afraid to realize that she really did know him, and that he really wasn't a stranger at all, but someone much closer.
She doesn't back away from the eye contact. She's waiting for an answer. An answer that wasn't about the fringe events happening abroad, or about how to solve a differential equation. It's a personal question this time. She's trying to understand why he showed up in her dreams, and more importantly, why he implied that she felt anything for him.
He knows all this without her telling him. Or at least he concludes this from reading her face and putting it in the context of the one he loves. Once, he wasn't one hundred percent sure that this was the universe he belonged to.
In her eyes, he knows differently.
These are her eyes.
These eyes are the only ones that he can see right through. Read as clearly as his own mind's thoughts. Know better than he did the back of his hand.
Her lip twitches, and the sole of her left foot rolled backwards as though something had slightly pushed her backward.
Recognition, perhaps.
"Yeah, you were—are," he replies.
For a moment, her eyebrows furrow, and he notices that she has probably already guessed what in what way she was important to him.
But she doesn't react to this.
He's hurt again.
She's standing right there in front of her, so close, yet so far.
He just wants to reach out and feel her warmth against him.
"Hm," she says, and lingers for a half second with an etched smile drawn over her fair face before she rotates on her heel to step out, a ripple travelling down her blond locks.
She's pulled back around by the right shoulder, firm arms folding her against his chest so that his mouth could find the right angle to kiss her.
Her lips are tight, not soft like the last time he remembers them.
She smells of cinnamon, not of petal like the last time he remembers.
He's disappointed. She's either changed, or she's not the Olivia he loves.
He's stuck for a moment at the realization, and it's she that pushes herself away, eyebrows knitted together in concern.
"You really don't know what you're doing here," she says flatly.
He says nothing. Does he apologize? Was his memory faulty?
"Everyone thought it was better for you to just stay under custody," she continues. "I fought for your rights because I believed that you could actually help us."
"I—"
"I gave you a chance."
He recovers quickly. "I guess I blew it."
She doesn't say anything, interrupted. She composes herself, just like she always did, and then turns around to get away from him.
He sees her bite down a smile as she leaves.
:) Review?
thir13enth
