The thought flows through your body like blood, thick and smooth and warm: you've gone too far.
The funeral is on a Tuesday. Everyone has on the same face, and everything is cold in that dark, bilious way, like everything is rubbing you wrong. The air on your dry skin, your skin on your fibrous tissue, your tissue on your white bones. Too much friction.
You watch her cry, attempting to lift her eyes from the ground with your own stare, but she never looks at you or at anyone else.
She's the first to leave. You're the last.
And then it's dry hands, dry air, dry steering wheel, dry steering. Henry is quiet. The windows are down and his hair sweeps around, innocent and dead.
You think of her in the night as you lie alone in your bed.
You pull up to the dilapidated castle and you can already tell it's empty. She sighs beside you.
You ask again, "where is he?"
"I told you: I don't know." Her mouth settles back sadly into that same frown, and you've always thought her to be beautiful. You wonder how your own lips behave when you're looking at hers.
"I don't believe you." Each syllable is acerbic. To her credit, she doesn't blink.
"Well, it's the truth. I don't know what to tell you."
You actually do believe her. You say more because you're being hard and stupid. The fact that you recognize this doesn't stop you from leaning over and whispering the words, "tell me where Henry is."
Again, she's unfazed. She leans closer too. "I don't know. And I don't care that you don't believe me. Right now, all I care about is finding him, and I'm going to do that with or without you. You hate me. Fine. But for now, get over it, or get the hell out of my car."
Ten retorts on your tongue, and one bitter concession. But you falter. You falter. You choose none. You choose the twisted air of a tired exhale. You tilt up your chin and you don't even know why, why, why, but then your lips are that much closer and she finally looks as though she might have misgivings. About something.
You sit back in your seat and look out the window and she says something like "all right" or "okay" and together you find him (the longest four hours later) in the woods, crying something like it's too late.
She refuses to leave, elects to sleep in the hallway outside of his room. You would call the police, but she is the police, and all I care about and it's too late.
No, you wouldn't really call the police.
You cry slow, fluent tears in your car. Henry's at school. It's raining. It's such an ugly thing to be reduced to – to reduce yourself to, to cry in your car while it rains. You cry for everything that has happened, and for everything that will happen, and you wonder if her eyes would change, if she could see you now. If she might look at you differently, with a sliver of pity or understanding or something, or if she knows you don't deserve any such warmth.
"It's over."
It's all over. The forest has engulfed the town and freed the people and the wind blows and the empty nostalgia in all of them has transformed into recollection.
It's just the two of you now.
"It's over," she repeats, smiling, "and you lost."
She's the one bleeding out on the green grass, and you're the one standing over her, watching souls return to their rightful bodies, but you did lose, and in that, she won.
You lean down and touch her face and she doesn't turn away. If she could, she probably would have. That crown on your head justifies you watching her suffer, but it also justifies you putting her out of her misery, and you can't decide which is worse, and whether or not you would choose the lesser.
"I went too far." You don't know when you started crying, or when she did, but there you are.
"It's a little too late for that," she laughs. She spits red at your feet and that's when you realize that you're going now, into dust. This really is the end, and you never could have had the one you wanted. Especially the one your eyes burn for right now.
"I am sorry." Every part of you is sore, and your throat hurts the most with the escape of that truth.
Something in her face acknowledges the fact that honesty hurts, and the bravest, brightest honesty you've just shown her is the finale. She nods once, staccato, and her chin stays down. Her arms wrap tighter around her abdomen and her eyes squeeze shut. She doesn't watch you disappear, and maybe that's what hurts the most, and maybe that's why you find yourself welcoming the darkness that's escaped from inside of you only to manifest itself on the other side of your skin.
"I am sorry."