Sliced Trees and Dead Words

40 - Sliced trees and dead words.

- WOLFE -

This isn't the way I imagined this going down—Luna burrowed under my arm on the couch, pressed into my side reading Dalen's cursed collection of sliced trees and dead words, while my shirt gets soaked through with her tears and snot after I ran out of tissues to pass her during the first two pages.

I don't know where she is up to. I've read most of it once, and once was enough for me. I'm not reading it again. She could have surpassed where I was up to by now an hour later, I don't know. I don't really care to at the moment. All I care about is that she's here, and she hasn't kicked me out yet. If she wants to keep reading and crying and drown out my entire wardrobe as well as this particular shirt, she's welcome to it if it means I can stay.

I was surprised she could read through her tears, truth be told. They were flowing hard and fast, and she had to pause all the time to get it all out before she could read on, which is what she's doing now, except this time she's crawling out of my embrace to do it, pushing off my legs, standing and pacing back and forth with the book in her hands as she endeavours to get herself together.

"Is this why you're with me?" she eventually blurted out, unable to keep it inside any longer.

"What do you mean?" I wasn't deliberately trying to seem like an unknowing dumbass, but I didn't know what the hell she was talking about.

"Are you only with me because he said we were always supposed to be together?"

She must be further than I thought. I'm still yet to come across anything resembling a Wolfe-Luna prophecy. "Where does it say that?"

"It's literally everywhere, Wolfe!" she said, searching through the pages for quotes, going back to what looked like the very beginning. "'But Luna's phenomenal, open and generous, kind and spirited heart is destined for someone else; someone a fuck tonne more worthy and evenly matched to hers than the black hole in my miserable chest ever could be . . . Who will simply hold her and ride out her raging storms, rather than adding to the swirling chaos like I did . . . I love him already for everything he will unearth in my precious Luney. The firestorm in her that I've only ever glimpsed embers of. The tidal wave that appears to me only a ripple. The tornado that I've only felt blow like a still breeze. The earthquake that cracks the earth's core, not just the top layer of dry red earth underneath my weathered boots.'"

It's almost laughable hearing Luna read those words out to me now. When I first read them I remembered thinking of the poor, unknowing bastard Dalen was talking about and wishing him luck because I personally couldn't stand the woman. Now, hearing it again has taken on a whole new meaning because I know I have accomplished all of these things already with her. She transcends all these earthly things. From the moment I actually met her, she always has.

"This was never about his love for me, Wolfe. This is about our love for each other. You and me." I'm not following, and I think she knows it because she explains without me having to ask. "He's basically given you the blueprint for how to fall in love with me, down to a very sensationalised description of all my faults and strengths as he saw them, spoon fed to you from a poetic silver platter that makes me out to be a lot more worth the effort than I am."

"You are worth all the effort in the world, Luna," I said, reaching for her shaking hand with my own. I mean that wholeheartedly. No amount of time or effort would ever come close to what she deserves.

"Wolfe, be serious here. Is this why you've convinced yourself to think you love me? Out of obligation to what Dalen thought we could have been?"

I shook my head in disbelief, uncertain of how she has drawn this particular implausible conclusion. "I do love you, Luna. Regardless of Dale, and probably even in spite of him to a degree."