Chapter Ten
Jove, get back in character.
Jove
I’m dying.
I am in withdrawal-induced hysteria, and I. Am. Dying.
Lyra hates me.
It’s been weeks since I had Brianna deliver my letter to her, and I’ve heard nothing. Received nothing. My PO box is empty of anything but unwanted fan mail every time I check it, and I’ve been checking it an average of three times a day every day for three flagging weeks .
The butterfly hanging from my neck pushes against the skin of my palm, where I’m squeezing it so hard I can feel blood pooling before trickling down my fist.
I can’t eat. I can’t function. All I’ve done is sleep. I’ve barely written 3,000 words in all that time, and every one of them was trash. I am trash.
I couldn’t just leave things alone, could I? I had to approach her, knowing she didn’t want that, and now she doesn’t want me .
I need Lyra. I cannot live without her.
Why did I write her an apology? Everyone knows you’re supposed to apologize in person, face-to-face, so that the other person can see you’re sorry. I’d never apologize to Mars in a letter. I’d consider it cowardly .
So why, when it came to Lyra, did I think it would suffice?
Because she didn’t want to interact with me in public?
I have her address. She could have interacted with me in private.
I could have apologized properly, and she could have forgiven me, and we could have gone back to our letters.
We could have maybe even, once the seal had been broken, hung out in real life, in the privacy of her home or mine, as friends.
It could have been a step up in our friendship.
But no. I didn’t do that. I wrote her a letter, stormed through town, intimidated Brianna into delivering it, and then… sat in my anxiety for three weeks.
What am I doing?
Why am I doing?
Since when do I sit around anxious and worried, letting my problems simmer into bigger problems rather than solving them?
Since never.
No more, I decide.
I loosen my hold on my butterfly, lifting her over my head and taking her to the bathroom, where I clean the blood off of her wings. “Sorry, little flutter,” I murmur. “I have been a fool.”
I’ll give my Lyra-love one more week, I think. That will be a month.
“One month,” I tell my newly cleaned charm, hooking her back over my neck. “One month, then this foolishness ends.”