Daniel.

Chapter 29: Storms and Silences

DANIEL.

29. Storms and Silences

"Are you really, really, really happy?"

"I'm so very happy."

"Then I'm so very happy for you, you idiot. I never actually thought this would happen. I'm so happy!" Clara said, her munching sounding muffled behind her smile. Daniel could imagine her sitting on her bed with her legs spread out, books sprawled everywhere with bright tabs stuck on every page.

"Lucas wants me to tell her," he said quietly, fiddling with the drawstrings of his sweatshirt.

"I thought he was alright with you not telling anybody for now?" The sudden tightening of her voice made Daniel's palms fist into crumbles of nothingness.

"He is. He's not forcing me or anything. He just. Thinks I should," he told her, breathing slowly.

"Do you want to, now? I mean. He's got a point, Dan. She deserves to know."

"I know. I know she does. And I do want to tell her, I really do. But. Everything's so. Newly fragile. I can't just go to her and tell her I'm probably going to be dead in a few months," Daniel said, hands pulling apart at his hair just like everything else was pulling apart at his entire being.

"But. Daniel, the longer you keep this from her, the worse it's going to get. I understand what you mean. But I know you understand what I've been trying to tell you as well. Maybe it's fragile right now because there are things like these that you haven't told her. And until you do, it's never going to get stronger than this."

"I." He took a breath, trying to exhale some of the pieces that were breaking apart inside of him. "I don't want to," he admitted, letting self-regard squash the guilt for just a while. "I don't want to tell her just yet. She just. We're. It's good. It's. We're happy. I don't want to tell her just yet."

"Hey, hey," Clara started, her voice taking that soothing turn that made Daniel breathe easier. "Okay. Alright. We won't tell her right now, okay? We can wait some time. You're right. This is new and this is fragile, and even though we don't know when the right time will be, if you don't feel like it is it right now, then it's not it right now. Okay? We'll wait. It's good and you're happy. We'll wait," she said, and Daniel could hear the worried smile she'd put on her face.

"Okay," he said, and hoped with everything in him it was the right to say.

Her room always smelled like candles that had just been put out, even though Lucas had never known Jade to be the kind of person who ever lit any candles.

She was sitting at her desk when he reached her, buried in the creases of a book. The evening had just begun unpacking, still settling into the spaces of the dissolving sun. Under the light of its yellow glow, she turned to look at him, and Lucas knew it wasn't a smile but his heart he was wearing on his face in that moment.

He'd always loved her so much more when her hair curled itself to fit the shape of her face. The green of her eyes stood translucent under the yellow of the parting sun, and the way they crinkled made his heart stoop into a helpless mess.

"I'm going to London," he breathed out, clutching his chest for reasons he wanted to blame on the way he'd darted from his home to tell her. "I'm going to London," he said louder again, more for his own benefit than hers.

"What?" she smiled, getting up and walking towards him. It was a smile Jade never pulled out, the one where her teeth showed and her eyes laughed.