Day 5
Part 4
Edward paces. "I need to get out of here. Let's just, get out of here for a while." It sounds more desperate than he intended, so, accurate.
Shaking her head, she replies, "Edward, please don't start down that path..."
He rails back, makes to throw his book, but thinks better of it and just... sags. "I keep forgetting this is one-sided." He spins, can't even look at her. "This is what's real to me." Beats his chest once. "How can it feel so big and exist only in one person?"
"Edward," she whispers, "It's not... it's not one-sided, but—"
"'But' what? I just wanna be with you," he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world and because it is.
"You say that, and it's beautiful to hear, but why do you?"
His face scrunches up. Does she not see herself clearly? How good she is? How clever and kind? The world stomps that out of so many but she's still here, giving. Giving chances.
"What do you mean 'why'?" He runs his knuckles along her cheek and her eyes close, leaning into his touch. "How could I not?"
Her fingers come up to lay over his. "But… Why do you? Ask yourself what you really know about me."
"I know enough," he says with a soft laugh.
Suddenly, her fingers stay his own. "No, ask yourself. Ask yourself what you truly know about me."
He steps back. Brows knit. "Enough." Straightens. He isn't going to let her talk him out of this. It isn't that simple. Feelings aren't simple.
"Edward," she says. Sucks in a quivering lip. "If you won't ask yourself, ask me."
"And just what should I be asking?" He'll play along with this.
"Fine. Ask me about my family."
He shrugs. This he could've answered himself. In fact, he will. "That's easy enough. They are all here and you're close enough that you don't want to leave them."
"I never said that."
"This is a very un-fun way to tell me that you aren't interested in going away with me."
Pulling his left hand into both of hers. "Not that I don't want to. Can't." She inclines her head to the Dragoon area, the long-dead man and his family pictured there.
But she's right. He accepts that, quite suddenly.
He's known. On some level. Known what she is.
What else could he possibly grasp with a phantom limb?
"Will this...?" He forces out the words. "... change anything?"
"Yes."
"Everything?"
"Yes."
"Then, I don't wanna know. I can just stay here." He gestures widely. "I can move here and see you in the after hours. I don't know! Something!"
She looks down, smooths her skirt, and speaks softly. "It cannot work like that, you know. You want to think you don't know, but you do."
"Damn it. Yeah, I don't know... I don't know. How am I—? I don't see the point. Am I just supposed to leave and act like you're not here? How am I supposed to live like that? Nothing is real anyway. It's all so screwed up. You're like the air to me. I can't remember the last time I got a lungful. And I just wanna be with you. Just be with you and it's all so damn, so goddamn unfair. You're here and I'm here but that isn't good enough."
She holds him with a look. Stares like moonlight that slips through grey clouds and splits the night.
He pulls her to him. "I w..." he starts, resets, a freight car switching tracks. Touches his forehead to hers. "I so wanted this to be real."
Eyes closed, he doesn't move. Wishes he could breathe her breath in with his own.
"If—When I look at the exhibit, your portrait will be hanging there."