Narcissus

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A/N: Cover picture is Elise. Hope you guys enjoy this chapter, just to add the support on my last update was literally overwhelming, I read every single comment even if I don't reply! Last night I stayed up until 3am reading every comment and it actually made my eyes water because you're all so damn sweet and i love it when people laugh at the dumb jokes i put in here. Anyways here's some rain and some angst hope you enjoy ;)

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The village recovered.

It always would, in that sad way that everyone tries to ignore. Because who wants to admit that their life holds so little significance? That people will eventually just forget about you? The flowers placed by the site of the crash withered and blew away. Angus returned to work, I gave up calling Rita. It seemed that life had gone back to normal, and I was supposed to be on the road to healing again - but I wasn't. And the sad, selfish thing was it wasn't Mary dying that hurt the most. It was the fact that anyone had died that was the worst. I would never, ever understand what I had done to make it so that I had to endure so much pain and heartbreak over the span of my lifetime. It seemed that every time I was close to some form of happiness it was ripped away from me and quite frankly, I was sick of it. Death followed me like a dark cloud and I found myself wondering how long it would be before I was taken, too.

The beach was cold and wet and quite horrible and the shawl I had wrapped around my shoulders did nothing to dissuade the strong wind that struck me in my face. Tears bled down my face as I sat down on the sand and watched the sea rolling in. The crash of the waves was far too loud for the sound of footfalls to reach my ears, so I was surprised when to my right, someone appeared. Rita sat down beside me and tucked her knees up to her chin, staring out ahead. It was at that moment that everything suddenly grew quiet. The sea settled down, the wind whispered it's final words and the gulls flew back to their nests anticipating the words of the brunette beside me. Everything felt much colder and the sun wasn't a golden orange, it was a burning red, and it glared at me relentlessly.

"When were you going to tell me you were in love with my sister, Emma?" Rita murmured sotto voce.

"What!?" My head whipped to the side and I stared directly at her. The woman did not even look at me, just stared straight ahead watching the sea with feigned disinterest, "Wha- How did you know?" The tears were falling faster now. I didn't even bother to deny it. Lying would have only made things worse.

"I didn't," Rita sighed, and she looked at me now, and it felt like my heart was breaking all over again, "But I do now,"

"Oh, Rita," I said tearfully, reaching out to grab her arm. Instead of shrugging me off, Rita just looked down at my hand then up again, "I wanted to tell you, I really did, I just -"

"It's fine," Rita said; but it wasn't. Not really. I don't think I've ever heard someone say that and genuinely mean it. I have always thought that declaring that something is 'fine' is just like admitting out loud that it really isn't, "I understand,"

"Please, just let me explain," I begged.

"Emma, listen," Rita sighed and heaved herself to her feet, dusting sand from her jeans, "I get that you didn't want to tell me, I get that. But lying to me? When I came to your house crying every night for weeks about Mary, begging you to tell me what was different with you because I had already lost a friend and I didn't want to lose another? I mean, Jesus, did you think I wouldn't notice?"

"Rita, I-" my voice was meek and laced with exhaustion.

"You're my best friend, Emma," Rita was crying now, borderline sobbing, "I'm not going to walk away. We're adults, we're going to talk through this. But fuck, don't lie to me again. Just fucking don't,"