I sit on the ledge, knees up, arms draped over them, breath ghosting in front of my face. The only light is from the cigarette in my hand.
Here I can think. Here the weight of what I’ve done doesn’t crush me flat.
There’s movement behind me. I don’t turn. I already know who it is.
I feel her like a shift in the tide.
She walks slowly, every step silent. But I know it’s her; she seems to have burned herself into me now. Her scent, her movements, just her.
The air shifts. Electricity hums. I still don’t look.
Instead, I say softly, without turning, “If you’re going to jump, little lamb, at least make it interesting this time.”
There’s silence. No witty comeback. Just the sound of the water crashing against the stones down below.
I feel her moving closer to me, but yet I still don’t look at her. She sits an arm’s length away from me, and we sit in silence, the kind that carries storms and hunger and unspoken rules. The kind of silence that might end in fire, or blood.
And I wonder if she hears the same thing I do when the waves crash below.
Not danger.
Not fear.
But something calling.
Something ancient.
Something that sounds a hell of a lot like fate.
She doesn’t say a word. Not one, but she stays.
The wind biting our skin as it hits us, the waves below echoing everything we’re not saying. The silence between us isn’t soft. It’s thick. It’s heavy. It bruises.
I keep my eyes on the lighthouse, the steady blink of its warning light like a heartbeat in the dark.
Eventually, I speak. “You always find the highest places to pretend you’re not drowning.”
Still nothing.
I glance sideways. Her arms are wrapped around her legs. Her chin on her knees. Watching me, or not. I can’t tell. That’s the problem with her. You never know if she’s about to run or destroy me. Again.
“You should stay away from me,” I say finally, my voice quiet but edged.
She shifts until our shadows merge on the wall, two long forms tangled.
But she still doesn’t speak, and maybe that’s the answer.
Maybe silence is all she can offer me, and maybe it’s all I deserve.
I push to my feet and walk past her. As I reach the door, I pause, just long enough for her to hear it.
“You’re going to make this very hard, little lamb.” Then I leave.
She’s going to make it hard, her eyes are begging to be saved from what, I have no idea. Yet, I don’t know if she’s making it hard, or if I am.
No matter how many times I tell myself she’s an O'Brien, it doesn’t change the pull I have toward her. No matter how many times I tell myself we should kill them for what they did, I want to taste her more.
And that’s when I know it’s not her who’s going to make this hard, but me.
