Re: Crime and Punishment
Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2020 5:28 am
"I love you too," Ivy whispered back to the only person in the world to whom she didn't have to question if she meant it.
She wanted to stay here a little longer. Here in Myles's arms, here resting under this tree, here in a moment where she didn't have to think about what came next. Back into denial. Wine and dancing and laughing and plane tickets to Tokyo and the map of directions from Durham to Savannah already saved on her phone. It wasn't really denial if she knew what it was, was it? It was just dreaming. It was just acknowledging how much better they both deserved.
Ivy could imagine some kind of future without Wyatt. Without Tristan, without Beryl, without Bret. She couldn't imagine a future without Myles, and she knew she would, eventually, if she wanted so badly to stop hiding in possibilities that would never come true. But she didn't have to right now. She refused. Her friends were dead and dying but she took Myles's hand and she was—
"Okay."
She squeezed.
"We should move. I can walk further if Garren carries my stuff, I think."
She'd give Myles her essentials, the water, the food. Perhaps part of accepting her situation was in abandoning her pointless nods toward civility, her attempts to brush her hair, brushing her teeth with Ace's pilfered toothpaste and her finger in the mornings, her changes of clothes, most of which had been worn at least once by now and were damp with humidity and sweat. Conveniently she now had a pack mule to bear those burdens. She'd paid the price until now for some semblance of normalcy; she certainly didn't want to give it up now that someone else was carrying the weight.
"Any ideas?"
She wanted to stay here a little longer. Here in Myles's arms, here resting under this tree, here in a moment where she didn't have to think about what came next. Back into denial. Wine and dancing and laughing and plane tickets to Tokyo and the map of directions from Durham to Savannah already saved on her phone. It wasn't really denial if she knew what it was, was it? It was just dreaming. It was just acknowledging how much better they both deserved.
Ivy could imagine some kind of future without Wyatt. Without Tristan, without Beryl, without Bret. She couldn't imagine a future without Myles, and she knew she would, eventually, if she wanted so badly to stop hiding in possibilities that would never come true. But she didn't have to right now. She refused. Her friends were dead and dying but she took Myles's hand and she was—
"Okay."
She squeezed.
"We should move. I can walk further if Garren carries my stuff, I think."
She'd give Myles her essentials, the water, the food. Perhaps part of accepting her situation was in abandoning her pointless nods toward civility, her attempts to brush her hair, brushing her teeth with Ace's pilfered toothpaste and her finger in the mornings, her changes of clothes, most of which had been worn at least once by now and were damp with humidity and sweat. Conveniently she now had a pack mule to bear those burdens. She'd paid the price until now for some semblance of normalcy; she certainly didn't want to give it up now that someone else was carrying the weight.
"Any ideas?"