Aftertaste | ✔️

Broken eyes for a broken heart.

        Scarlett didn't know why she was here.

        She didn't know why she had bothered to show up now, when she had never been bothered before.

        She hadn't even bothered to go to the funeral. She didn't care. Why should she, when she never had before? She had no right.

        She hardly noticed anything around her. She hardly looked at much anymore, actually.

        Her days had become a string of clouds. She passed from one to another feeling like she was floating, hardly seeing anything through the fog that surrounded everything. Almost weightless.

        Her therapist said it was denial. She was in denial. She needed to accept it. Claire Ashdown was dead. Dead. Dead.

        Deadeadeadeadead.

        She knew already. It's not like she would ever forget. But it wasn't denial, it was guilt. Guilt that she had unknowingly wielded so much power. Guilt that she had taken away not one life, but two.

       Scarlett knew two halves when she saw them, and she'd known it when she had loved one of them. By killing one, she had killed the other.

       She didn't know which one had been more painful.

        When she saw Lea sitting by the marble, it didn't even register as unusual at first. She was so used to seeing Claire with Lea, Lea with Claire.

        They could never be separated, Leaandclaire. Not even in death. Lea's soul would guard Claire in her grave with the same ferocity with which she had guarded her when she was alive.

        But no, she realized. That was definitely Lea. Real Lea. She could tell by the smattering of freckles across her nose which her imagination was never quite able to replicate.

        She took a few steps back immediately, not wanting to see the disgust in her expression.

        But Lea did not look disgusted. She looked curious. Thoughtful. Her head cocked slightly to the right in a way that Scarlett had always found so endearing.

        She didn't say anything to Scarlett, just watched as she laid down the flowers and sat down on the other side of the grave.

        Scarlett felt her hands shake as she rested them against the cool grass, felt her heart shudder out of her chest like it was trying to escape. She wanted to run, but she wanted to stay.

        She met Lea's eyes for the first time. They were deep brown, and in the sunlight they looked like pools of honey. They had always been beautiful. But there was something about them now, something inherently off.

        Broken eyes. Broken eyes for a broken heart.

        She wondered if Lea could see the regret in her own eyes. She wondered if Claire could. If anyone could.

       Because, for all her heart, she really did regret. She regretted everything, which was why she was here.

        So the two girls sat, each here for their own purpose. Girls whose lives would never have entwined if not for another. Two lines that never should have crossed. But they did. Through accident or fate, they did.

       From either side of the grave, Lea and Scarlett looked at each other. They smiled. Small, uncertain smiles that showed not trust, but chances.

        A new beginning.