“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river but then he’s still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he’s still left with his hands.”
She looks at him.
It's so much like falling. It's so much like dying. Michael is so familiar with fear but it never gets easier to breathe, or to move, or to take the dark mug that she hands him. For a bit he can't breathe, until his lungs sting and his stomach hurts and his ribs feel like knives when he finally exhales.
Moira has lost weight. Moira has lost everything. And if Michael looked her dead in the eyes and her ghosts asked him why? he would not have the answer. He would not want the answer. He knows that whatever he'll find in the pits of him, whatever will be there when the rock in his stomach cracks open, he isn't going to want to call it by name.
It is so much like falling. It's like stepping off the ledge when he steps forward to close the space between them. It's like feeling his feet leave the ground when he sets the mug on the counter so she doesn't see how it shakes when he holds it.
She says nothing and he says nothing and the Earth is laid out like a map beneath him and it is coming, coming, at an alarming speed. He is full of cold air and fear. He can feel his legs moving but they're kicking at empty space, fighting to live when the choice has already been made. And always there is the Earth, rushing to meet him.
Michael looks at her, more bone than he remembers, not the same vibrant red and orange and black. That strand of hair that is never in place looks flatter and it is only then that he realizes he's close enough to see it at all.
He wants to say, I came back for you. He wants to say, I would have stayed for you. He wants to say, if only you had asked me. He wants to say, If only I had given you the chance. But he says nothing, as Michael always does, when things need to be said.
Michaele looks at her, bone and dark fire and the light from her lantern, and he breaks all his bones on the map of the earth. It's fine. He deserves it. His voice breaks when he says "I'm--" and then tries again, "Please stay."
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