"—and I bet you don't even like me, who am I kidding, I'm just forcing you to put up with me when you don't even want to—you stick around just to be nice, I know, I know, I'm nowhere as amazing as you are and you're so much better than me—"
"But I want to be around you."
She lurched into silence, though the heaving sobs didn't stop from where she was bent over her knees, forehead pressed into her clasped hands.
"I like being with you. I like talking to you and spending time with you," the words fell from his lips easily, like a dream. She stilled, hands shaking.
"I think you're amazing, too. You're strong and you're hardworking and you're kind," he continued, eyes downcast but steady. "And you're so morally upright it hurts."
She sniffed quietly, and his eyes flicked towards her trembling form from where she was sitting beside him before looking back down.
"You're too hard on yourself. You're worth more than you think you are," he hummed, glancing up at her again. Hesitantly, he reached towards her and gently brushed his fingertips against her back. She froze at the touch, but seemed to relax into it. Slowly, he began to stroke her back calmingly and she leaned into the touch, unravelling slightly from where she had curled tightly in on herself.
For a while, he just kept stroking her back as the sniffling sobs slowly died into silence. Finally, after she seemed to have calmed herself down a bit, she straightened slowly and rested the back of her head against the concrete behind the bench they were on. He rubbed repetitive circles into her back, hoping it helped—and it seemed to, judging from the way her rapid breathing was slowing and her face softened.
"I care for you, you know. Maybe not as much, and maybe not in the same way, but I do," he murmured, watching the way her eyes opened at his voice and her head turned to watch him with a look of wonder.
"I think you mean more to me than you seem to think you do," he told her.
She stared at him like a dying man stares at the moon, bright and shining in the sky. Like something so unreachable and far away that all she could do was admire it and drown in her own hope.
He hated it.
"I'm right here," he told her, searching the depths of her murky eyes watering with tears and hoping his words would reach some part of her and click. It didn't seem to work, so he lifted a hand to brush her cheek.
"Hey. I'm right here."
She blinked at him quizzically. "I know you are."
He screwed his face up, wrinkling his nose as a small burst of frustration arose in his chest. "No, listen. I'm right here with you. I'm always going to be right beside you. I'm not going anywhere, okay?"
She stared at him for a long moment, holding his determined gaze as something unreadable flashed across her eyes. Then all of a sudden she leaned forward, pressing her forehead into his side and twisting a fist into the corner of his shirt. He stilled in surprise, and then reached out in concern as her shoulders began to shake. Then, as the sound of laughter reached him, he realised that she was laughing.
He froze in confusion, not knowing what to do. Gradually, the laughter subsided until she was releasing his shirt and straightening again, wiping a tear from her eye due to laughing so hard. He watched her with a mix of bewilderment and concern, his gaze silently urging her to provide an explanation.
She smiled, her eyes fluttering shut with the size of her smile. "No, it's just—you can read me so well, and I should be used to it...but it still catches me off guard every time how you're way more perceptive than I think you are."
He blinked at her in surprise, taken aback by her response. A soft "oh" escaped his slightly parted lips and he flushed slightly, a light pink that scattered across his cheeks. Her eyes watched him like a hawk, seemingly drinking the sight in before catching herself and turning away. For a minute, they settled into comfortable silence, her swinging her legs with her side pressed against his while he leaned back and stared up at the sky in thought.
I don't want this to end, she realised, her eyes sliding over to trace along his jaw as he tipped his head back. Then his gaze fixed onto hers, and she realised she'd whispered those words out loud into the silence between them, as if afraid of shattering the delicate moment balanced precariously in midair.
He looked down, processing the words carefully. "It doesn't have to end."
"This feels like a dream," she blurted out, face blazing with embarrassment. Blushing furiously, she stared down at her swinging feet and continued, more softly, "It feels like it'd all end if one of us leaves. Right now, it feels like I could tell you anything. Ask you anything."
"Then—"
"But it feels like I'll never be able to do that again once we leave this place and go our separate ways."
"...why?"
She fiddled with her fingers, picking at the skin nervously. "I guess...it just doesn't make sense that—that you'd do this for someone like me. Someone like you, staying for me. It's incomprehensible, to me. It may feel as real as it is now, but in a week I'll probably have convinced myself it's a dream, because it wouldn't make sense if it wasn't."
"But this did happen. It's still happening. It's not a dream."
"It doesn't matter. The 'you' that I'm used to, the one I've formed inside my head, wouldn't do something like this. So I'll just gradually keep thinking of this as a dream."
"Then I'll just have to keep reminding you."
She froze, her fingertip stilling where it had been digging into the skin above her nail. The words seemed to resonate within her, echoing within her and bouncing off the walls of her mind while the letters scattered into the darkness of her thoughts.
"If time will make you forget that this truly, really did happen, then I'll just have to fight time. I'll keep doing things for you. I'll keep talking to you. Will that work?"
She turned to fix him with that look of pure and utter wonder again, but seemed to catch herself and gave a gentle shake of her head as if to dispel her traitorous thoughts. "...yeah, that'll work."
"Alright, then."
"Okay, if you're sure."
"I'm sure."
She smiled at his response. Missing the way he smiled back, she touched her fingers to her chest, seemingly lost in thought. "It feels like I'll love you forever," she breathed, the words slipping out almost involuntarily.
"You won't."
"I hope so. I know you won't ever feel the same way, but I can't stop myself from hoping. It's stupid."
"That's fine. It's normal. You still mean just as much to me, even if not as much as I you. Nothing has to change—nothing will change."
"But I don't know if I can live with that."
He startled at her response, the edges of her tone sharp enough to cut through titanium. Sensing his alarm, she softened her tone and continued, "You tear me up inside. Maybe it would've been fine if I was just dealing with one of the two, but I can't keep on like this. I can't keep stressing over both what you're dealing with everyday and what you think of me."
His eyes flickered downwards. She would almost think them sad if she didn't know any better.
"Then what do you suggest we do?"
She sighed, the sound defeated and exhausted all at once, as if she were Atlas holding up the weight of the world with nothing but her will.
"I don't know."