A Handful of Stardust

FATE FELL SHORT THIS TIME, YOUR SMILE FADES IN THE SUMMER

CHARACTERS: Comet Andromeda, Wilbur Caulet

TAGS & TRIGGERS: nostalgia, (childhood) memories, angst, suicide attempt

WORD COUNT: 745

Whenever Comet thinks back to how things were before, everything seems gorgeous. Rose-tinted glasses, Wilbur would say, verres teintés; and she would laugh, but he's wrong, she knows it, this one time. Because everything was better before, at least for her.

He never would have wanted to kill himself before, though she can't imagine what started his spiral—he always seemed so happy, but maybe its a buildup of things, a steady drip-drip-drip of terrible incidents, until he couldn't stand it and Comet found him in her bathroom, pale as death, and everything blurs pink and red if she tries to remember much more than that. He is not the same as he was at sixteen, at twelve, at eight when they first met (though it could have been seven, or nine; the years blend together before him, before Normal).

Wilbur clung to his father on the first day of school, chattering endlessly in rapid French the same phrases as he was lovingly pushed away towards six of them, playing in a circle in the grass; and Comet had perked up on hearing him speak her language, chunks of it she didn't understand, chunks she did—ils m'effraient, papa, je ne veux pas partir, though she only understood the words je ne veux pas really, the rest was guesswork—so she shuffled over, greeted him bonjour, and the rest is history.

How was sixteen only a year ago? 2002 is sparkling history, warm, with gilded edges. Wilbur looked sick then, but Comet still thought him beautiful, growing into himself. His hair was longer, he was sharp-faced, and she thought him something majestic, kingly; she was something very special if she was friends with a king. But he did look like royalty, truly, however crude the things that spilled from his lips.

To his credit, he softened himself around her, but she didn't want that—Comet wanted to see him from all angles, how he looked to his best friend but also to the girls at school, the boys at school, teenagers who passed him in the street and stared; he always made her giggle when he grinned and said, ils te regardent tous, they're all looking at you, because she knew it wasn't true. "They think you're hot shit, loutre." Of course not; but it was sweet he pretended.

That was when they were out. In private, he speaks lower, softer, sadder. Things spill from him he doesn't mean, Comet cries a lot, he does too. It was pathetic—it's harsh to think it so, but he wilts like a flower without the sun. Anything he did on those sleepless nights was unwilling; but still Wilbur drained her, and she pulled away; so she supposes, often, she deserved the scare he gave her in the bathroom, the feeling like everything was sliding away, and she had caused it all. She did cause it all, inadvertently. She should have taken his place.

But it does nobody any good to think like that.

He shook so hard against her—Comet never felt anything like it, that sullen emptiness that refused to budge as she comforted him, her phone abandoned on the floor and sirens getting closer: him whispering je suis désolée over and over, like a background murmur, a prayer. And she couldn't force out French, so she answered him in English, ugly English, I know, I love you, words that sounded so much better when they came from someone else's mouth. Even prayers slipped from her in English, not Hebrew—it felt as though G-d wasn't listening just then, for how could this happen?—but Wilbur was saved anyway, whatever language His name was whispered in. Herself tightly coiled around his body, his pulse roaring as he slid to and from conciousness, the smell of rot permeating the memory she hated so, the metallic taste of blood that filled her mouth where she bit so hard into her cheek and felt next to nothing.

How was she to know?—but she should have known. Everything was so much prettier before 2003. Summers came and went, and now everything fades into a technicoloured mess, and still she feels drained, though Wilbur is supposedly better. He is gaunt, he doesn't eat well, doesn't look her in the eye. He never looked so vulnerable to her before then; but embarrassment is no reason for something to shatter so quickly. He has seen Comet helpless before. She tries not to pity him.