Lilac

Chapter Twenty-Three: Part II

Chapter Twenty-Three: Part II

A short recap: Ethan finally sees the sadness on Lilac's eyes, and decides he could no longer hold himself back.

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Ethan didn't take his eyes off Lilac as his steps started getting quicker, started getting larger, until Lilac wasn't sure anymore whether it was his footsteps or her heartbeat thumping wildly, blood roaring against her eardrums.

Before she could fully process what was happening, he was dragging her up the staircases, enclosed in his arms.

"Ethan," she said.

He didn't answer, but his jaw clenched and the veins on his neck became more prominent.

"Ethan," she called again softly. His fast pace had her hair flying onto her face, but she couldn't pay attention enough to stop looking at him. She wanted to ask him what he was doing, where he was taking her, but she couldn't find the strength to.

And suddenly they were inside a room, and the door was closing with a loud bang, and Lilac looked around, head swimming in disorientation and faintly realized she knew this room.

The memories were carved into the darkness of the room. Taunting her, making her heart beat faster.

The coldness of the bracelet as he clasped it around her fragile, pale wrist.

The strength of his hands when he pulled her closer, his teeth sinking deeper and deeper.

Ethan let her go and he pulled away, putting distance between them and turned his back.

For a while, silence fell upon them.

"Is there... something wrong?" Lilac asked, her voice sounding out raw and shaky as she struggled to suppress the memories.

Ethan's jaw clenched before he turned around to face her. And for a while, he just looked at her. His eyes were not blank, but they were unreadable.

"Are you willing to pay the price?"

"Price of what?"

"The price of this compromise."

Lilac's heart started beating wildly at the memories, and if Ethan heard it, felt it, which she knew he did, he didn't show it.

"Did something happen?" she asked again instead, her voice cautious and soft, as if she was approaching a bottled up storm.

He still didn't answer. His unreadable eyes were still fixated on her. Lilac was starting to get anxious.

"Are you scared of me now?" he asked her before.

But no, Lilac was not scared of him. Not at that moment. Not today. Never.

She stopped asking questions and stared back.

Without fear. Without insecurities.

But with a message she wished he wouldn't read but also wished he would because she didn't have enough strength to say it loud for him.

I missed you.

Somewhere along the process of getting lost into the blueness of his eyes, of the storm she couldn't read, of the ocean whose bed her lilac eyes have never seen and her feet never reached, Lilac's train of thoughts stopped.

And as a silence she's never heard inside her head that was always too full of thoughts and too full of him, him, him, prevailed, Lilac's feet started padding slowly, willingly, to the storm.