66-Kit
I understand why Zachary was chosen for this project.
She has a way of making even the most guarded person loosen their grip. Her questions are witty, thoughtful and layered, but she delivers them with a gentle curiosity that makes answering less like an interrogation and more like a conversation between two trusted people.
I’m losing the only person I met post-mask that ever truly saw past it.
Zach packs her equipment with mechanical precision, lens cap, cable, battery, then mics, each one a robotic, practiced movement as her thoughts scatter elsewhere. She moves toward the door, and I slide from the booth, the vinyl seat groaning under me as I stand.
My cloak snags on the edge of the table. With clumsy fingers, I yank the bastard free. Zach’s already down the narrow aisle, shoulders hunched, camera bag bumping against her hip as she descends the top step.
“Say something,” I beg, my feet carrying me to her side before I can stop them. “Literally anything.”
“I have a lot to do,” she murmurs, voice as thin as a spring-thawed lake.
Her hand wrings the strap of her bag. A tiny shock pricks my fingertips as I ease her fingers open, letting the strap settle against her chest. My other hand lifts instinctively, brushing the chain at her neck. Sliding my fingers up her throat, I clasp her chin, tilting it up.
A faint smear of red paint transfers from my thumb to her jaw. Her eyes are glossy and red-rimmed. Spearmint laces her exhale, and under it, the sour stench of spirits.
Zach crumbles, trying to disappear into the seams of her hoodie. It guts me. I know what her sobriety meant, and exactly what pushed her off the wagon. She tries to turn again, but I hold her firm.
“Please don’t shut me out.”
“I don’t have a fucking choice!” She faces me so fast I almost stumble back. “After the tour, you’re going across the freaking Atlantic,” she says, voice rising. “Do you know what that means? Do you know what this—” she gestures vaguely between us, hand trembling, “has cost me?”
Her breath hitches, and her face scrunches. My blood goes cold. I want to reach for her, but I don’t move. I can’t.
“Why didn’t you—”
“What are you going to do about it?” she snaps, her outburst shattered by a sob. “What are you going to do when people call me disgusting? When they say I’m backwoods trash that’s not good enough for you? When they say I don’t deserve you?”
Her voice ricochets off the metal walls. People outside in the lot must hear it; hell, the whole bloody crew probably does, but she doesn’t care. She’s shaking, blazing with fury and devastation.
I stand here and take it all. Because she’s hurting.
She’s right, I caused this.
“You don’t get it.” She steps closer, her finger jabbing into my chest like a bullet. “You don’t have to wake up every morning to people telling you that you should die because you stood too close to someone they worship.”
I feel sick, but she keeps on—unloading the entire damn clip. “You don’t get what it’s like to have strangers dissect your body, your worth, your entire existence because they think you’re ruining their fantasy!”
The light flickers, illuminating the wet shine in her glare, the flush rising in her cheeks, and the utter exhaustion carved into every line of her face. My heart pounds so hard it burns. I reach for her wrist as she turns away. She flinches, cradling her forearm.
Her pained hiss is the final blow—the kill shot.
Please, not this.
Placing my hands gently at her waist, I guide her closer.
“No,” she screams, fists pounding against my chest franticly.
In the tiny, suffocating space, her fury crashes over me, and I eagerly drown in it. She’s a storm, and I’m the bloody reason it’s brewed. With a final, feeble strike to my sternum, the fight drains out of her.
She presses her forehead to the spot she just hit, and I wrap my arms around her, holding her as firmly as I dare. Her hands dig into my cloak as she collapses into me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her hair as her sobs shake the bus. “I’m so sorry.”
It isn’t enough. It doesn’t fix anything. Sorry doesn’t protect her from this.
I want to make a statement defending her publicly. But I can’t. The label won’t allow it. Even being with her now is a violation of our contract. She pulls away, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve.
“Look at me,” I say, trepidation crawling through my limbs.
She doesn’t. I slowly reach for her hand, giving her every chance to flee. But she doesn’t move, and when I slide the fabric to her elbow, my sight loses focus. Reality reaches inside my chest and wrecks what’s left of my heart.
A strangled cry tumbles in the back of my throat.
Fresh marks mar the medusa tattoo I traced in the dark with my lips. The serpents, carved with lyrics she carries like armour, are half-legible, broken along the raised red skin. My thumb glides over the nearest serpent, the one that holds my words.
Don’t hurt yourself again.
The ink is warm, the skin tender. It blurs under my thumb, the letters distorted and meaning fractured.
“Oh, Zachary…” My voice cracks alongside my soul. “I’m so sorry.”
It’s all I can say. All I have.
“It’s not your fault. I’m not your responsibility, Kit.” She hacks at the remaining threads of our bond, leaving barely any for me to hold onto. “And I’m sure as hell not going to be your burden.”
She wrenches her hand back, her face a closed, concrete resolve. The door clicks shut behind her, and my legs give out. I drop to my knees, hands shaking, breath coming in shallow bursts. I want to chase her. To hold her. But I can’t move.
I’m not meant to follow. Not now. Not like this.
My heart tears in two; one half begging me to run after her, the other half whispering that if I do, I’ll only worsen things.
It’s a strange, cruel dichotomy—to be both the problem and the solution.
To be the cause of her pain and the person who wants most to take it away.
Staying back is a betrayal, but stepping forward feels like her destruction.
We both have to make a choice. Hers is to let me go.
She deserves to face the sun without my shadow lurking behind her.