"It was pure luck, really, that this hadn't happened sooner. Two years of keeping out of his reach had really been testing the limits of fate, and the sane voice inside her head kept telling her she would have to face him eventually. The world was b...
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Four years and eight months ago.
Can had been keenly aware of her absence. Even more so now that they were creeping closer and closer to lands she had grown up on.
It wasn't a coincidence. A part of him was preparing to let her go, for her to fly away like a bird on new feathers the moment the cage door was opened, and he wasn't hiding from the chance to let her. At least, he was trying not to. But even the thought of her goodbye was painful and his feet were stubbornly refusing to walk towards it, allowing him the false comfort of what little time he had left before he was sure she would leave them.
When had he become so soppy? He wondered, before accepting that it was probably around the same time he'd let a scruffy black and ginger cat sleep at the foot of his bed.
He wasn't sure what had made him fall so fast. Perhaps it was the way she walked through life with an open heart, a touch in everything she did that could rival the gentleness of a baby bird, and eyes that lit up like the light of the summer stars in the moments when the world proved there was still so many more wonderful things to find.
Perhaps it was because of how she could forget the whole world around her as her hands conceived a mini masterpiece over every page of her sketchbook. He wasn't sure now how many hours he'd spent simply watching her draw. She still hadn't noticed.
Maybe it was the shadow of being raised in a world of innocence. How she had become his piece of serenity, when he'd been born unto ocean storms.
How she was kind. In a world that was not.
Because Can had seen thousands of beautiful things. But now he had seen the last that would ever matter and it seemed unfair that their time was almost over when he had so much more of his heart left to give her.
Gods, this was going to kill him.
Maybe another universe would have been more forgiving - that life would have allowed them to live and love without the threat of the blood and daggers that had raised him. In a universe where reaching for a weapon did not come to him so easily. Maybe they could be happy.
Or maybe his heart would have been left broken in every single one of them.
---
Sanem had realised she was no longer the one playing a game of avoidance.
It was as if her own sudden change in demeanour had sparked Can's own withdrawal, but she couldn't for the life of her figure out why.
The cards had changed hands, and although Can's movements seemed unintentional and held no malice, the reaction was enough for her to feel a mere ounce of what she'd been putting him through for the last month. And it had only been a few hours.
