𝐓𝐨𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐓𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰

55 - Remnants.

“Oh you aren’t even that interesting. You can hurry ahead now, Mister Storms,” She hid the grin breaking into her face as she turned around to tend to her unfinished task, “Until you find another blatant muse to satisfy your viewing pleasure.”

Not that he would.

•••

𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐃𝐀𝐘 | 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬 𝐄𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞, 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Tension, truly a remarkable way to spend a Tuesday. Because first the unthinkable, then the unexpected. But the same garden, the same empty bottle of cherry whiskey, the same twenty-year-old gramophone standing idly nearby, the same trimmed grass, the same ‘could have been’—the same place—and the same people.

Pierre was aware of the bullets that were buried right under their throats, both his and Helena’s; ready to fire, ready to aim with their mouths gunpoint at each other’s mistakes, empty promises, why she left, why do you have those scars on your shoulder, we were just laughing about the hideous orange coat I wore the other day then you were gone, and you told me you’d never leave, but you did.

Though at the same time they were completely unarmed and helpless.

Both of them were too stoic, unable to even find the audacity to speak, since the blame could just land on either of them, then they’ll be completely running in circles. But whenever Helena would finally try to open her mouth—breathless apologies, South Carolina, fifth streets, and running would always screech at her with a nameless threat.

Helena was scared.

A posing Apollo stared back at Pierre, apathetic and gray, sculpted beside the fountain, reminding him of yesterday, where Peonies would bloom, she’s around, she’s there, and waking up for tomorrow wouldn’t be such a chore.

And Pierre was lost.

Green orbs managed to challenge Citrine, but the latter could only avert, hide, run. Helena felt the world grow uncomfortably smaller, and the sensation successfully compelled her to bear fruitless efforts.

She’s starting to think Pierre is doing that on purpose.

“W-what’s he like?”

His heart struggled to find its next beat, and his eyes shunned the sunlight as he allows her to drink in the tragic question. Tragic, because he missed all the firsts. Because he wasn’t present in any vivid photograph. Because he didn’t know his favorite color.

Tragic, because he wasn’t even there.

Maybe that’s what she half-heartedly did on purpose.

“... Everything I didn’t deserve,” She bitterly quipped, her stare burning on her feet, and she meant what she said—she always have, every time she would see a little boy scampering away for the closet since mama has no power to erase the nightmares for now, darling, and I’m sorry. So, so sorry.

Pierre sighed. “What don’t you specifically deserve, then?”

“How he’s basically alike of a gentle giant,” Helena chuckled, woes abandoning her heart for a timeless second, “Sometimes I can’t even figure him out. Then once I begin to, he’ll curl up into a ball and cry because of the dolphin endangerment documentary we watched a few nights ago.”

Pierre listened, as Helena’s change of mood piqued all of his attention.

“I... I don’t even know why he turned like it. I taught him some things, but it’ll be hard. It’ll be hard to yell at him, to stay mad at him, god you’ll barely be mad at him. You’re just going to be mad at yourself at the end of the day because you know he cries himself to sleep often.”

Helena’s gaze softened, her thoughts warranting the faintest of smiles to quirk her lips. “He’s Aiden, he’s twenty four years old–” And he has your eyes, “And you’ll love him, Pierre.”

Helena tried reading Pierre’s silence right after. When she did, however—there were too many words that hardly lead her to what he exactly felt. Some told her she was walking on thin ice, because it’s been more than two decades since she last saw him and the same two strands of his hair that were dipped by each side of his head, but she knew she is speaking to a different book.

One whose few pages are torn.

“He’s no mistake of ours after all, Hélène.”

Pierre’s statement eclipsed her silent wonder. Guilt racked her chest, and she could tell the French man has been getting better at bringing on a good argument with flattery on its edge.

“I never said he was a mistake. He was, just so sudden and–” She swallowed, “I was afraid.”

“But you don’t tempt people into not waking up the next day when you are afraid,” Pierre recounted, pain searing in his tone, “You stay with them and you tell them what you are afraid of and things could have been better.”

“Look, Pierre, what could you have done?”

Anger coursed through the French man, and he glared at her all at once, before he faltered brokenly under her.

His face darkened, then his voice faltered, all at once. “Is that how low you thought of me?”

“No, I-”

“Damn, Helena. What.. what could I have done, really?” Pierre mumbled, disbelief shared between each syllable, “In another world, I would have set them all aside, in one place, where we wouldn’t hear them, we’d fall on deaf ears but we could have been happy, tearless.”

The sky held the same distance the first time he would look at it without her presence, and the green of his iris welcomed the gray of the heavens.

“I could have had you.”

To be continued
on the next chapter...