It should hurt more. It should be ripping her apart inside watching someone else earning that shy smile she loved, to watch someone else's hand holding the hand she longed to feel once again clasped in her own as they'd walked the halls. To see someone else having to bend just a little more in order to reach those tempting lips she hungered to feel against her own just one more time. Truly it should end her a little more every time she catches another not-so-secret 'stolen' moment between her legacy and another in the growing list of 'replacements' Juliette collected in the days following her rescue.
And it would have. It would have ripped fresh wounds into her somehow still beating heart every time she'd been forced to witness the blunt way Juliette had attempted to close her out of her life if it hadn't been for two small things.
Alright more like several small things and one glaring one that keeps the embers of hope and possibilities alive despite all of Juliette's attempts to stamp it out in the dwindling days leading to the Burns's looming move from Savannah. In truth, they should have moved to a new town weeks ago but with Jack still being treated in one of the area hospitals the relocation had been shelved until he was more stable for long-distance travel.
The several small things are the noticeable similarities the hunter finds between herself and the seemingly endless line of 'placeholders' her legacy chooses to try and wound her with.
Her hair was a similar shade to some, her eyes matching those of others, a few of the in-between ones even having a similar skin tone to her own as they lean so easily beside Juliette's locker between classes or when she'd catch them lingering longer than needed at the edge of her legacy's desk before or after a class.
Never quite a true replacement but as good as her wounded legacy could find within the halls of Lancaster Academy that wasn't Cal herself.
Yet the more tangible reminder the hunter had that someday she could call her legacy hers once more was the small gift, she'd found in her locker what had turned out to be Juliette's first day back in class after her 'illness' as the others in their school had come to think of it.
Thinking of it now Cal's hand reaches up to first touch the sliver chain and then to smooth her fingertips down the hidden lay toward the small charm the necklace held. The chill of the slivered little thing was oddly cold against her hot skin as her gaze like it always does sharpens jealously when she spies her compact vampire stretching on her toes just to be able to reach the lips of the nameless one newly instated in thinking themselves Juliette Fairmont's girlfriend.
Unfeeling blue eyes lock with hers as Juliette's head turns as if drawn by the heat of Cal's gaze as more of their fellow student's passed between the jostling a little more urgent now considering it was close to the end of another school day.
True she had no tangible proof it had really been Juliette who'd left the necklace hanging so unassuming in the hunter's locker, but Cal didn't need any to feel the glow of hope inside her every time she'd reassure herself the silvery bee still was clasped securely around her neck each morning. Really, she only took the gift off to shower since it just appeared.
Then just for a second the corner of her mouth twists in what could be considered a smile as those icy blue eyes notice the caressive touch the hunter's hand made against that small space the silvery necklace charm rested hidden under her shirt collar but then Cal blinked, and the unfeeling mask was back in place as Juliette's locker snapped closed and her legacy's hand falls heartbreakingly into someone else's as the two walk away.
"Burns you coming?"
Ben's voice breaks the hazy fog that had settled into Cal's mind in those quick seconds of finding something of the Jules she had first fallen in love with peeking out from the tight control of this new 'unfeeling' Juliette.
"Y—yeah." Cal agreed her finger brushing one last time against the small silver bumblebee resting against her skin as the dazed hunter hastily shut her locker and attempted to catch up with an already walking away Ben Wheeler down the emptying hallway.