Outer Limits | ✓

◦ mindless

⠀⠀⠀ Darcy flickered her gaze back to her ceiling. "Not even to you?" She didn't know what possessed her to ask, but deep down she knew there was an array of even more questions beneath the surface. "You seem so close, like he'd tell you anything."

⠀⠀⠀ "He does." She snapped. Darcy deserved that. "I mean, he did. I don't know. We don't talk about this, about anything, not like we used to. Sometimes ... sometimes I think he's never forgiven me."

⠀⠀⠀ This startled Darcy. What on earth could her perfect sister need to be pardoned from? "For what?" She dared to ask.

⠀⠀⠀ "Jude and I we, uhm, we have history."

⠀⠀⠀ Darcy told herself to remember how to breathe, before saying, "You mean you used to shag?"

⠀⠀⠀ "Ack!" Emma's face screwed at that. "God, Darcy, no!" Darcy gave her a bewildered look. "Nothing like that ever happened. We've never even kissed. But ..."

⠀⠀⠀ Darcy swallowed. "But?"

⠀⠀⠀ "He liked me." She told her in such a despondent manner that Darcy wondered if her sister was saddened by that prospect. "We liked each other, how could we have not? We were inevitable. I was the first person he connected to in a foreign country, the first person that made him feel heard, and he was mine."

⠀⠀⠀ "Then what happened," Darcy egged, wincing at how eager she sounded.

⠀⠀⠀ "He told me I was his best friend. That he cared about me," she sputtered, and Darcy belatedly realised her sister was crying. "That he loved me."

⠀⠀⠀ A feeling, hot and sick in her stomach, burned. Shaking herself from the dark turn her thoughts had taken, Darcy forced a smile. "That's ... a very kind thing to say."

⠀⠀⠀ "It was just about the worse thing I've ever heard," Emma confided, "because I knew I couldn't feel the same way. And worse, I knew he didn't feel that way about me, either, not truly. But he wasn't ready to hear that back then."

⠀⠀⠀ There was static crackling in the silence that ensued. Darcy mulled over what had been revealed, but it was only a pinch of the story. She needed more. "How could you possibly know that? That he didn't feel that way about you, I mean."

⠀⠀⠀ "Because we weren't meant to be," she took a quick intake and Darcy braced herself. "Because he never looked at me, the way he looks at you."

⠀⠀⠀ Darcy almost immediately sat up against the set of pillows propped under her. Her jaw clenched and her hands balled in fists, she could feel the trepidation clawing at her neck. "What?" Words were hard to find. "Jude ... he doesn't ... what are you talking about?"

⠀⠀⠀ Emma let out lengthy sigh. "Oh, I didn't realise."

⠀⠀⠀ "Realise what?"

⠀⠀⠀ "That you were still keeping that cruel charade that's called your feelings for Jude up,"

⠀⠀⠀ "I do not ... I ..." Darcy shook her head, crimson blooming her cheeks. She was so tired, tired of lying to herself. "I'm not sure I even know how I feel. How could you?"