HER
It's surreal, unpacking in the same room I did all those years ago.
My hands shake as I set each item down. Everything I own now is too fine, too foreign. None of it belongs here.
Neither do I.
I wander around, learning the halls I once found so familiar. The only place I find completely unchanged is the courtyard. It looks just the same as when I left, down to the large tree being in full bloom. I breathe in the familiar Anglorian air, listening to the soft birdsong accompanying the fading summer sun.
A gentle call from behind me draws my eyes away.
"Laur—Beth."
I smile at an exhausted looking Elliot, standing like a lost schoolboy in the doorway.
"I will never be able to repay you." His voice breaks, shoulders slumped forward. My heart aches.
I rush towards him, taking his trembling hands in mine.
Crouching slightly, I force him to meet my eyes, to see the truth in them.
"You don't need to repay me, monetarily or any other way. I just want Amber to get better."
He nods, fighting to keep the sorrow from his face.
"I just never thought…" Something in him finally crumbles, and he puts his face in his hands, strangled sobs forcing their way out. I lead him carefully over to the small bench, his knees giving out just as we get there.
"Oh, Elliot."
I rub his back, his shirt wrinkled and dirty under my hand. Weeks of stress is obvious in the dark circles under his eyes and the messy beard he hasn't bothered to upkeep. His breathing is shaky as he runs his hands through his hair again and again, only making it more tangled. He has to swallow three times before he can speak.
"I don't know why you left, but I know why you came back, and that's enough for me."
His voice is so much deeper than I remember it. The eager puppy from three years ago is gone and in his place is a mature, anguished man, desperate to save his wife.
My body screams at me. My guilt is a physical thing, writhing under my skin.
"I didn't—I mean, I didn't do this just so you would forgive me, if you hate me I would understand."
My voice comes out mercifully even, even though I have to dig my nails into my palms to keep my hands from shaking. He's contradicting me before I'm done.
"I know you wouldn't." He looks at me, tear stained and somber, and I can't help but think how different everything is. "You're here now."
The words seem so simple when he says them. So obvious.
I rub his back gently as the fear from the last few weeks drains from him.
I don't fool myself into thinking everyone will feel this way.
I can't.
HIM
I turn away from where they sit, her soothingly rubbing his back as he lays his head in his hands.
She hasn't changed.
The thought stirs so many conflicting emotions I have to pause and lean against the wall. I can't fill my lungs, there's a pressure against my sternum.
Perhaps if she was completely different, I could understand. If I had never understood her in the first place.
And yet.
Here she is.
Giving away money and abandoning her husband just to come support a friend she hadn't spoken to in years. Expecting nothing in return.
The way she touches his shoulder—gentle, steady—was the same way she steadied Amber once, years ago, when she twisted her ankle.
I close my eyes as my face twists. My hands are clenched by my side as I try to breathe through the torrent of emotions. They're overwhelming and impossible to understand. A low ache starts at the base of my skull.
"I can fix your livery if you'd like."
My heart seems to pause, my whole being focusing on the woman next to me. I have to control my expression, my breathing, before I can look at her. It takes a moment, both of us standing in silence.
Finally, I turn my head slowly, blinking at her.
For three years, I've played this moment in my head. But not like this.
At first, my fantasies involved her jumping into my arms and telling me how she missed me. As time went by, they changed. Maybe she would see me in the market and come up to me, tears in her eyes, apologetic. She would explain everything in a way that absolved her of all guilt. After the three year mark, my imaginings ranged from crying, to pleading, to disdain. Perhaps she hated me all along.
The reality is beyond anything.
It's boring.
Casual.
As if we are nothing but old acquaintances.
I glance down at her ring where it catches the light, and it hits me.
That's exactly what I am to her.
I suppose that's what all my fantasies had in common. All of them involved her revealing a preference towards me. That she remembered; that I had meant to her even a fraction of what she meant to me.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your peace."
My brain is slow to catch up, still reeling. Slowly, I go over her words again and again in my head.
They're so very casual.
"Guess it is getting pretty beat up." My voice doesn't belong to me. It's too formal, too low.
She freezes halfway through turning away from me. A small smile appears on her face. I take another arrow to the chest.
"I'm surprised Stephens hasn't given you a scolding for it yet."
Truth be told, he badgers me about my livery every day. But I've seemed pathetic enough for one day.
"It is a small miracle."
The words are too light. Too teasing and friendly. The last three years are walls closing in on us. Neither of us acknowledge them.
Laura, Beth, slides up next to me, leaning against the stones.
We both stare out over the fields, saying nothing.
After all, what is there to say? Too much and nothing at all.
I cast a sidelong glance at her. She looks so similar, yet so different. Her eyes close against the golden sun, a stray curl shifting across her brow. The contented hum she releases skitters across my bones. How dare she still have this affect on me? How dare she stand here and act like nothing has happened?
"I missed this place."
Then why did you leave? Why didn't you come back? The words are hissed in my head, sharp as barbs. I hold them in, and instead of hurting her, they dig into my heart.
"It has grown on me." I say, trying not to choke on the words I won't utter.
"I can tell."
I raise a brow at her, and she smiles softly.
"You seem at peace here."
Her molten brown eyes have become no less effective in entrapping me. My body shifts, just barely, towards her, before I can stop it.
Our hands brush for less than a breath.
The same, long dormant sparks jolt their way up my arm, stronger now than ever. I have to turn away so she can't see it.
The ruin on my face.
Swallowing is difficult, and I feel as though I just sucked on a lemon.
I push off the wall, accepting in a moment what I haven't been able to in three years. That this woman will always live in my heart.
I smile at her, and she tilts her head, ever indulgent.
"Welcome back…Beth."
Her new name lodges in my mouth like sticky candy. Hard to swallow.
HER
He barely gets around the corner before my knees give out.
I'm crumpled on the ground, my head in my hands. One hand falls to my chest, pressing firmly against the wild beating of my heart. The other covers my mouth, harsh breaths hitting my trembling palm.
The scent of sun-warmed earth and Aleksi still cling to the air.
Pain ratchets through me, sharp as the evening chill.
It's all I can do to stare out over the darkening fields.
Wishing everything was different.