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There are moments when she is so radiant it almost hurts to watch, her light is so bright and unwavering that even you can't hide behind words, your precious eloquence.
It is rare and it is when you know she has given up: something pushes her too far, that proverbial straw, and she does not so much snap as bend- she gives up all hope, she gives up all despair, she becomes unafraid and then there it is: that cold, proud glitter of the defiant freedom, that uncaring fierceness of the fatalistic.
Her body is her betrayal and mystery, that small, breathing container of delicate bones and treacherous feminity; you find yourselves wondering how she could have survived so far, so long without breaking and still not do anything about it. Is it really so paralyzing, her fear, that she would not risk living for terror of death? How does she breathe with such restraint- doesn't she ever want to break free, to live and bleed and strive…
Will she ever forgive you if… something monstrous…
Then she comes out of it all, shattered and free and so bright it hurts your eyes to watch her rage at you. Her body has broken and there is nothing left to fear; this will be the last time you get to hold her, the last moments she will tremble and hate and live so strongly for you, in these seconds.
And still she doesn't let go, or maybe it is you, but that doesn't matter- a part of you wants to break and weep and confess to her I'm sorry, Evey, oh Evey, never forgive what I am but no, you would do it all over again if you had to. So you tell her to commit to it, and even this is the most important moment of your life, and what can you do but hope desperately that she hears the goodbye in the undertone?
The salt-rain is blurring your eyes and streaking in cold rivets down your face through the eye slits when you look to the sky as you carry her to the balcony.
God is in the rain, she says and she is crying and smiling and beautiful; her bare arms are wet and her face naked with emotion, lifted to the rain, a goddess, and she has never glowed so bright.
But you- there is a mask echoing the pounding rain into surrealism and the black that shields your scars also shields you from God's touch in the rain; only demons and monsters are born of fire and you think, tiredly, that it shouldn't bother you, after all you've managed…
Less than a week later, she is leaving for the second time, but it still stings sweetly, this vindication. You know she had left you in the moment you ordered her to become her own; if you really loved her, you would let her go again. After all, her light has always been too strong for you when it is the shadows you prefer. But now she is saying I have to go and already you are missing her, her fearless eyes and small curled fists, and before you can stop- before you want to stop, you ask her to see you want more time.
Of course, she says, as if she is actually willing to.
It is strange how this hurts and shames you more than anything else she has said, and for one life-stopping moment you want to give her twenty years of your dreams right there and then, if only she would say I hate you again and let you kiss her.