Burn

EPILOGUE

Margo was at his door again.

He could see her shadow beneath its trim, hovering across the hardwood floor as she paced back and forth. She'd taken to doing that a lot over the past few weeks, now that she insisted on driving him to school. She didn't know he knew how long she stood there.

"I'm worried about you, Carter," she'd say at lunch, frowning at him from between bites of her sand-which.

"I'm worried about you, Carter," she'd say over the phone, voice soft and cautious.

"I'm worried about you, Carter," she'd said that first night, when they'd trudged home in the dark after losing Ryu. "You don't look well."

And he wasn't.

Sleep was hard-won and quickly lost. He woke up in the middle of the night to the pounding of his own heart, spurred on by dreams of fire and inky blood and red, red eyes. The usual smudges beneath his eyes had deepened into a darker bruise, and Margo liked to reckon he was pale.

"I've always been pale," he'd argue.

"Too pale, then," she'd reply.

Now, Carter watched her shadow a few more times, then gave an exasperated huff. "I know you're there, Margo."

His door clicked open slowly, and a tanned face framed by black hair poked around the corner. "Oh. Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. Good morning," he added, glancing over his shoulder. He was standing before the full-length mirror across from his bed, smoothing down a wayward clump of hair. "I made you a coffee."

Margo sighed as she sat on his bed. "You really don't need to keep doing that, Carter."

"I want to," Carter protested. "I feel bad about bumming rides off you all the time."

Margo smiled and stood from the bed, padding across the room to stand beside him in the mirror. Her gaze travelled to his sleeves.

"Can I...?"

At his nod, she rolled up his sleeves and examined the lines of burn scars crawling up his arms, violently stark against his pale skin.

"Still haven't gone, I see," she mused, a crinkle forming between her brows. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Carter shrugged and tugged his sleeves back down. "I don't mind."

He met his own eyes in the mirror and bit his tongue, scanning his tired, weary face. With Margo sharing only a single class of his, today was another day he'd face largely alone, without anyone to fill in the boring, quiet spaces. And while once that wouldn't've bothered him, while once he might've rejoiced in the peace, he now felt a stab of misery.

Margo must've read the look on his face, because her hand came down on his shoulder, and she gave a gentle squeeze.

"Why don't we leave now?" She suggested softly. "We can stop for coffee on the way instead. My treat."

Carter tried a smile, gratified at her attempt to cheer him up. Warmth stirred in the pit of his stomach, and when Margo reached for his hand, he let her take it.

"Okay."

The school shouldn't have looked any different post-Ryu than it had pre-Ryu, and yet, every corridor felt emptier, every classroom duller; the voices of his peers rose and fell in a collective buzz that he instinctively tuned out, a monotonous backdrop to the repetitive nature of his daily routine.

It was exactly how his life had been before, and yet, somehow, completely different.

How had he been so content with this? How had he lived his life in such silence?