knock on wood | howlett

v. then

bad blood ; bastille

"how'd you get that scar?" she pointed to his shoulder. he turned his frame so he could see it.

he smiled sadly, "my grandpa pulled an apple cutter out on me."

"that's terrible."

"not so bad when you realize it's just a weapon and he's just a person-"

"what if it were a gun?"

"he's not like that," he turned back towards her, straightening his undershirt.

"how do you know?" she sank her teeth into the apple he stole for her. she looked back down at her notebook, black charcoal lined a drawing of him that she'd been working on while he spoke:

"is your professor the kind of person to pull a mace on you?"

"a mace?" she giggled. "that's awful barbaric."

he smiled at her, she looked back down meekly. he pulled his flannel on and spoke, "you're really quite beautiful when you smile."

she looked at him through the chain fence. she ripped the paper out of her notebook. she wrote on the back: rebecca meijer, twelve, 1885.

she folded it and leaned forward. he met her small hand through the gaps in the chain.

"you're really quite beautiful, becky," he let go of her hand.

"you're really quite handsome, james."

a loud bell rang out over the property and she spoke, "that's lunch." she stood and he looked up at her. she took up her things and moved to leave.

he was seventeen and a handsome man. he still lived with his grandfather, and rarely talked about anything other than her and the apple farm.

he was entirely interested in the institute, how they treated her and how she lived there under such horrid circumstances.

"beck?" she turned to face him once more, haste was tight on her face. she softened upon seeing him.

something was bothering him, foreboding. he could sense something was amiss, "be careful."

she nodded and started away. she shrunk with distance.

he should have told himself the same warning. for it was him who witnessed a murder that night, him whose claws emerged for the first time, he who was forever changed by his own violence.

he ran and ran. he couldn't remember anything, either; his love for the sweet girl, the daily rendezvous, the source of the drawing in his coat pocket.

all she knew was he wasn't there the day after, or the day after that, or any since. but every day she went back, hoping to see him approaching her with an apple in hand and a story to tell about the farm.

he never showed.

therefore, she concluded his last warning was simply an empty farewell instead of an expression of his worry.

she stopped going to the fence when she turned fourteen.

she never got the chance to tell him what the children at the institute actually possessed: abilities.

she never got the chance to tell him about the things they had her practice.

she never got the chance to tell him she loved him.

"miss rebecca," the doctor's voice brought her back. a lone voice in the darkness.

she guarded her eyes from the flooding light of the hall behind him.

"it's time to begin."