the blood in our future

Of Cats and Porches

Lucy barely felt it, as she sank onto the stairs, as her legs finally gave out underneath her.

They didn't possess the strength to hold her upright anymore, and for once, Lucy didn't have the mind to fight them on it.

All she felt was numbness.

Tears covered her cheeks, drowned out the light around her; sobs broke her chest on their way out – but none of it mattered to her. None of it even reached her.

Every few seconds, her mind strained against what had happened. Pushed away what she'd just learned. She only knew that she was crying, then, that her tears, her sobs, her sadness, were cutting off her air, and her thoughts circled back to the cut on Lockwood's thigh, the one that must have been deeper than she'd assumed.

And then, it always came back to her. Every time with more detail. Every time with less haze.

Even her mind had no more energy left to keep it from her. And this time, no ghost was kind enough to make her forget.

It made her skin crawl time and time again, the understanding of it. It set her lungs on fire. Ripped her foolishly-given heart out.

He didn't love her.

He never had.

The boy she'd fallen for so hard, so fast, so boundlessly – he had never even existed.

It had meant nothing to him. All the smiles he'd given her, all the promises he'd made, all the low whispers and kisses they'd traded – none of it had been real.

Normally, Lucy would have been angry. Furious at the tears she was crying over this. She would have hated the way she'd been tricked, yet again, the way she'd been nothing but a means to an end, yet again.

But right now, there was only this infinite loss inside of her.

Even though he had been nothing but a charade – she'd lost him still.

She'd lost her home. In two ways, all at once.

She wouldn't have been able to tell how much time passed like this, with her sitting on the stairs, listening to the irregular beat of a heart that wasn't hers.

Shock was a thick haze in her head, thicker than the fog had ever been, and nothing much made it through.

She didn't even notice it, as the door was opened once more and, after rain and thunder, someone familiar swept in.

"Alright, they were still open! I got the pills as well as some cough syrup and a new thermostat – God knows where Lockwood hid ours the last time he was sick. They were out of tissues, though, so we'll have to make do–" The rambling stopped abruptly. "Lucy?"

Lucy heard his voice as if it came from far away. As if it held no meaning at all.

She heard shopping bags drop onto the floor, and the next moment, someone was next to her. Hands tried turning her head. Her eyes didn't follow.

"Lucy, what happened? Why are you crying?" Through the haze of tears, she could see alarm fill George's eyes. "Where is Lockwood?"

Her voice was close to breaking. Barely a thread of it was left. "Gone."

"Gone? What do you mean, gone?!"

"He left. Went out into the storm."

"What? Why? Where to?!"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I didn't ask."

"You didn't ask? You just let him go out for a stroll through the storm of the century without asking?!"