Devils and Angels

viii. storms of guilt

b r o n t i d e

the low rumble of distant thunder

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RAIN TRICKLED DOWN MY FACE with fairy-like tenderness, divulging my hair and matting it dark brown beneath the lucid morning. It lashed down in unforgiving torrents, merciless, but respectful of the way that the trees swayed slowly in the breeze with their trunks blazing gold and their leaves fluttering in graceful descent against the glaring cobalt sky.

Underfoot, the carpet of leaves on slate paving was no more than a tumult of rust and copper and blood and skeletons that clung to the soles of my shoes, as if desperate to escape their fate: being just another leaf in scores of them; just another corpse and indistinguishable from all the rest.

Allowing my eyes to fall shut, I tilted my face to the sky and embraced the downpour gracing my features, drowning them in all things despicably natural―counting on that to answer the internal question that had been plaguing me since I'd first stepped out of the flat that morning, Caspian by my side, when can it end?

The drizzle of rain clung to my hands, endowing them, even as I hid them from the world, curling them in pockets to inspire what little heat I could muster back into them, and failing, wondering if Caspian was as cold as I was, and then reminding myself that I didn't care.

We were early, earlier than usual, making time so that cars tangled in rush hour whizzed by, followed by buses of half-recognisable classmates; faces blurred by the droplets that laced the windows, distorting them in the silvered, condensed glass. I didn't like the thought of all those eyes knowing of us, trailing over Caspian and I and putting the pieces together, of us, when one was hostile and the other taciturn, and we shouldn't have belonged together in any twist of fate but the most unfortunate.

I wanted to be as far away from him as possible, but we were nine days going strong, and I had no idea how many left before I this would end for good.

The overhead shower was fading, dissipating into feather strokes, then the absence, of precipitation; stirring the need to draw warmth back into flesh, but missing me entirely, as though my only purpose in being here was walking beside Caspian, bearing his presence for a little while longer until we ceased to be neighbours, and everything that came with it disappeared too.

Feeling the breeze rush in on my slivers of exposed skin, I drew my dark blazer tighter over my shoulders and torso and huddled into it, gripping at the plastic buttons so tightly they embedded into the impressionable flesh of my palm.

The first stinging spot of blood beaded onto my lip and I licked it away, taking note of the fact they were raw from me worrying them into shreds of skin. I still felt hopelessly detached; out of place in this maze of a path I'd begun to grow used to; beside someone I had yet to decipher and understand, winding and incomprehensible in the fact that there was more to him that met the eye―the congealed glass of thought kept his emotions from pouring out in the depths of his eyes.

"Tia." Caspian finally spoke, his voice low and dissolved in the fresh breeze that cut across his words. "Can I talk to you?"

"You are," I deadpanned in exasperation, and in response to this, Caspian made a little noise of annoyance in the back of his throat.

"Please?" His eyebrows quirked up, soft eyes imploring, and I sighed, trailing after him as he veered off-track a little, into a quiet side road, devoid of stirring life.

"What is it?" I crossed my arms over my chest in defensiveness, then dropped them straightaway, realising the higher I built my walls, the more there would be to break. "...Ugh. Sorry."