Collide✔️

t w e n t y o n e

Days proceed, birth of the sun, too quickly followed by the burnt orange of the sky above as it extinguishes, offering the space to a star scattered night. Seven weeks till I am forced a surname; six days till I must endure a tedious evening with Eason and his parentals; five days since I lost Kian.

The chill had abandoned the evening air now, stretching a moist warmth across the Manor gardens, where I have chosen to spend most of my days. Simply, for if I continue to remain locked in my room, I am sure to drown in my tears. Outside, with the company of the insects and birds, the soothing breeze that caresses my perspiring skin, the open air from which I can breathe freely, I at least feel slightly more content.

I had known Kian had altered my life for the better, but to such an extent, I had not acknowledged. Every hour that drags on without him, it feels as though my chest cavity hollows further. A vice clenches more painfully at my bleeding heart, the butterflies in my stomach have all perished and since rotten, the smile that he brought about my face has long since left. He had told me, prepared me, that his life was not always fun and smiles, yet when I saw only a sliver of his unshielded reality, I judged him, vilified him in such a contumelious manner without even allowing him the chance to defend.

So easily, I turned my back on the person that has strived so desperately to make sure these last few months are once I remember for the right reasons. He's committed crimes, abandoned his reality to accommodate to mine. He's introduced me to so many new feelings I thought I would never get the chance to experience, and I tarnished such kindness by my rash actions. Perhaps I have not known him long, yet I feel I know him to that extent. Never would he hurt me, or others, so his reasoning must've been valid. And I did not offer him the opportunity to explain.

With a sorrowful sigh, I let my fingers trail against the nape of my neck, collecting the strands of hair that have adhered to the beaded sweat on my skin. With them and the rest of my chestnut hair, I twist and pin it against my head, allowing my skin the chance to breathe. The breeze here is at its most noticeable – the high peak, surrounded with the peach trees whose petals now fall. The very same trees where I first met him.

The view at dusk from this place is quite spectacular. Looking out on to the unblemished horizon where such vibrant colours blur, all of them magnified by the intensity of the burning sun, which forces waves of heat across the ground, almost like a mirage. Then it settles, slowly dimming as it does so, and the subdued blue invades from the very highest points in the sky, until the reds and yellows and pinks have been dominated completely, disappearing until dawn.

It is at this point the air draws cooler and when a chill runs down my spine, I accept that it is time to return to the confines of the Manor, and so, I let my feet slowly carry myself upstairs.

I bare no notice to the fact my door is slightly ajar, opening it slowly and pushing it shut behind me. It is only when I see Zaveri perched on the end of my bed, her skin that so often glows like topaz kissed by the sun, now blanched, as she holds in her hands one of the books that should not be in my possession.