, lost in the sounds -

[juliette bennet]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[/i][/b][/color] bit deeply into Juliette's flesh as she leaned on the sink's marble rim. The curvature of the cold stone pressing hard into her elbows as she peered at her steamy reflection in the mirror. She closed her eyes, letting the sounds floating in from the open window wash her thoughts away. A soft piano melody from her neighbor Jan's computer mingled in the brisk air with the sounds of chattering and shuffling from the pathway below. A car alarm was going off in the distance, its repeated symphony echoing in the night air.

" Forget. "

She chided herself, her eyelashes fluttering open against her will. Little beads of water trickled down the soft landscape of her cheeks and she allowed them to remain for a second longer before wiping them away with her towel. She had tried and failed. What would be different about tonight? The girl stared at her reflection in the mirror, the mistiness had cleared away now, her own face becoming more translucent in the glass. But she knew it was impossible. Impossible to forget each gossamer thin memory that tangled itself in her mind. The images dangled before her eyelids, presenting themselves every time her eyes fluttered shut. A heavy florescent light hanging from the paint-peeled ceiling. A tarnished golden door knob. A blackened metal spoon resting beside a bent envelope. The ocean's grey waves lapping up against the pier. His face, smiling gently in her direction and his hand outstretched towards her.

A sigh escaped her lips as her fingers clasped tightly around the edges of the ivory sink. Her jade eyes flickered to her left arm. The small puncture spots were still present in the bright lights, small darkly tinted dots on an otherwise flawless terrain. Juliette's gaze pulled itself back to the mirror. Forget. Pulling the long sleeve tee from the towel rack, she slipped it on over her thin frame. A light tap of make-up on the fading bruise on her right eye was followed by a patting of the soft skin stretched beneath it. She gave herself a last look in the mirror before opening the door and slipping out of the bathroom into the small room she shared with Krista. The other girl was sitting at her own desk, a cluttering of make-up strewn across its surface. " You going anywhere tonight? " Krista asked, her eyes peering above the mascara brush she held in her hand and towards her roommate. Juliette shook her head no, pointing at the bruise on her eye and shrugging lightly, a smile somehow managing itself on her lips. The other girl smiled weakly back, returning to her eyelashes without much hesitation.

Juliette crossed the room to her bed, lifting the comforter to find the silver necklace she had taken off last night in a fit of near consciousness. Her thin fingers pried open the jewelry case sitting on her bedside table and she tossed it in, shutting the case quietly with her eyes still on Krista. She hadn't even bothered asking her where she was off to tonight. She assumed it was another underground party, something thrown by Krista's newly found airline heiress friends, Joanne and Kim. Juliette had met the twins on two occasions before. Once whilst drunk at Matteo's party. Another time only briefly while with him. They were friends with him, had known his uncle or something barely warranting a relationship. But she had seen the way the two girls had stared at him, their gazes unable to break themselves from his face. She had laughed it off then but now the memory seemed like a cruel reminder of what she had walked away from.

A soft knock came from the door and Juliette looked up. Krista's party posse had arrived, no doubt. She bade the girl to continue her make-up, she'd get it. Krista smiled a thank you and proceeded to jog towards the bathroom, her fingers clutched around a tube of lip gloss and an eyelash curler. Juliette pushed off from the bed and strode towards the door, self-consciously fixing her hair to cover her contused eye. She opened the door slowly, bracing herself for the shrill screams that were sure to come from Joanne. Her eyes had even squeezed shut momentarily, expectant. But no noise came. And Juliette's breath escaped in a slow gust as her eyes met a tan v-neck sweater. A chest. Her gaze trailed upwards, passing the set of full lips, piqued into a grin, past the hollows of taunt cheeks and into a set of devastatingly blue eyes. Juliette felt her body jerk into a state of shock, every hair raised towards him. An icy shock grasped her tightly for a millionth of a second as her lips parted.

" Ethan. "

[/ul][/blockquote]

[ethan richardson]

Solitude was Ethan Richardson’s drug

[/color] – he both craved it and hated who he became during those rare moments. Being alone enabled his mind to wander; to remember things best left forgotten. In his shadow lay a million secrets that were exposed only while he was secluded. The demons of his past haunted him only when people weren’t around – when his careful mask slipped. He spent his life attempting to remain present but when the crowd thinned so did his smile. His personality may draw people to him but these shadows were what kept them at bay. No one could ever claim the distinction of truly knowing him. He sighed, his fingers tangling in his unruly hair. There had been one. He had thought she would be different. She had caused him to hope; to believe that his life could be different. In the end she had proved him right about all his convictions: love was something that existed solely in fiction. Like everything else it was not everlasting. Instead its existence rested upon a finely twined thread of trust and effort.

He had made the effort and she had walked away. He had handed Juliette his heart, battered and bruised, in hopes that they could create something new for it to dwell in. In the end she had rejected him and a heart without a body eventually stopped beating.

Ethan no longer allowed himself to think of the dreams he had once had for him, for her – for them. Such dreams were foolish. They accomplished nothing but regret when not realized. He had never been a dreamer and now he no longer dared to hope. His fingers twisted absently around the platinum chain around his neck as he made his way through the familiar pathways that lined the school as he allowed his eyes to fall on the soft dusk sweeping across the darkening sky. Like countless times before he found himself wondering if his mother was looking down on him now. Would she feel sorry for how it had all turned out; for the life she had sentenced him to in her absence? As a boy his aunt had promised him that she would look down on him, but how could she promise such things? How could anyone know what happened to the dead but the dead? Their stories were as sealed as the tombs that held them. No matter how fanciful the notion, Ethan was certain that the dead did not remain. Once they left they remained despite how comforting it was to imagine that some piece of them stayed with you. He used to like to imagine that he was wrong. If he was wrong it changed everything for it meant that at one point in his life someone had truly loved him, not out of obligation but from the pureness of their heart. He liked to believe that the love of a mother was the purest of all – unconditional, nurturing, unceasing. He would never know if he was right: the woman who gave him life never saw his face.

Her existence had colored his life. Through her absence everything had been made different. In many ways her death was more tangible than her life had ever been. He had felt the bitter cold of it his entire life and never understood why his father hadn’t been able to release her from his memory. The image of Juliette walking from him on the beach was forever seared upon his consciousness and it was in that instant that Ethan finally understood how one moment could define everything else. Perhaps that was why people chose to believe in life after death, not because they couldn’t accept that the person was gone but rather that the moment they were lost was too strong. It is always easier to lay the blame somewhere else.

A soft sigh escaped his lips, curling into the night. He had tried to forget; to pretend it had never happened but the truth was not easily erased. He had loved and a part of him would never stop. With each hand he held, Ethan was reminded of the way hers had fit perfectly within his as though it had been molded with that specific purpose in mind. The taste of another’s lips did not satisfy the way hers had. For a brief whisper of time he had walked in the light and no amount of time erased the fact that he was blind once more.

Pursing his lips he focused his attention back to the impending night. He had no illusions of grandeur. Each date followed the same course. They would see one another a few times until, for some inexplicable reason, he would no longer call or reply to any of her messages. The more time spent with another meant the more of yourself you had to share. He had given himself to someone already and there were no remnants for anyone else. His brow furrowed as he attempted to remember the name of the girl he was seeing that evening. It started with a ‘K’ – Karen? Kristine? Katherine? Did it even matter? These dates were nothing more than a sham. Nothing built upon a foundation of lies could last.

Reaching into his pocket Ethan pulled out his cell phone and flipped through the messages until he found the one with her address along with how much she was looking forward to the evening. A smirk played upon his full lips as he moved fluidly through the dormitory. He was an expert at pretending and tonight would be no different. He would play the part of a perfect date casting an illusion that she would wholeheartedly believe like all the girls before him. And, for a brief flicker of time, he would be free from the trappings of his past.

His fingers rapped softly on the solid wooden door. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and smiled as he waited for the door to open – Her name… he needed to remember her name.

Krista! He thought with elation as the door opened. Her name was…

But the girl standing before him was not Krista. Her skin was pallid, nearly translucent. Her mossy eyes were dull their shadows casting purple smudges beneath them. Her hair, once silken and glossy appeared dull. “Ethan.” Her voice was but a breath, fading before it was even realized. He stared at her, allowing his eyes to trace features that were still familiar but now somehow harder, more angular until it fell upon the bruise that she attempted to mask beneath a cascade of hair and makeup.

It was then, faced with his past and future, Ethan Richardson found he did believe in ghosts.

[/blockquote]

[juliette bennet]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[/i][/b][/color] a long time ago. On a glistening, golden beach in Monaco. Underneath an inky blue sky, she had died before the azure eyes of her one and only. Half gasping for some sort of reassurance she knew he could never afford her, she struggled to retain a grasp onto her last bit of hope but found the receding tide just too strong. Standing before Ethan Richardson, the sun set into the Mediterranean sea, taking with it her last attempts at whatever it was she had with the boy she so deeply loved. " He doesn't love you." She was reminded bitterly by her own voice, choking underneath the uncertainties. It was true then and it was just as true today. Every syllable of the thought burned her like ice in her veins. He couldn't love her like she wanted to be. And no matter how much she fought against the terminal truth, she could never win. He didn't see her when he looked into her eyes, just as she no longer saw "Ethan" when she looked into his. They were strangers. Two solitary figures cast in an unpleasant, strange light. And yet, her heart began to thud violently against her ribs, threatening to burst under the strain as her gaze searched his again and again for any sign of recognition.

But no color of emotion broke against his cheeks. For a whole second, his face was frozen in that same expression. His flush lips were still upturned in a grin, as if pleased to see her standing opposite him in the doorway. His cerulean eyes still crinkled at the edges, tinted by his familiar, comforting charm. But all too quickly, his expression crashed down against her. His gaze hardened as they surveyed her bruised face and sallow complexion. Almost instantly, the smile has disappeared from the corners of his lips, replaced with a curt yet skillfully blank pronouncement. In the silence that seemed to swallow them, Juliette felt a screeching emptiness grow louder and louder before it seemed to shatter against her ears. At that moment, the silence burst, a thousand questions flooded her mind, screaming into her eardrums. Loudest among them found its way to her lips, slipping off carelessly as she stared carefully at him. " What are you...?" But she couldn't finish her inquiry. No more sound seemed to come to her throat and she was left standing before this ghost of her past life.

" Juliette! Who is it!" Krista called from the bathroom in a singsong voice Juliette knew she only used when particular company was about. Juliette turned towards the noise, her mind and heart racing one another as she struggled to piece together an explanation. She turned to look at Ethan once again, almost to confirm with herself he was actually standing there. " It's uh, Joanie! From down the hall. Come to borrow a h-hair straightener." She struggled to string together a lie. Silence answered back from the bathroom door and she knew Krista no longer cared.

The girl made towards Ethan, hand outstretched as she ushered him out into the hallway with a shaky, pallid hand. Her breathing came out in abrupt, flurried streams and her eyes seemed to stumble at the sight of him. Everything about what stood before her broke away at her defenses, taking from her the solitary tact she had managed to keep as a front. A front to crumbling interior, worn and beaten. She turned a half centimeter away from him, her eyes still fixed on his but allowing her hair to fall across her face, hiding the healing bruise that colored the skin around her eye a soft purple and green. Bewilderment spelled itself clearly across the tundra of her ashen features. She once again tried to form some semblance of a sentence, to bring voice to the hundreds of questions that vied for power over her lips. Her fingertips were still pressed gently against his chest from steering him away from her room and Krista. They felt ice cold against the rhythmic rattling of his heart. She only realized they still remained just then and quickly brought them back to her, clutching air against her own chest.

" Why have you come?"

She finally managed a clear sentence, but her tone was flat. For she realized that whatever his answer was, it didn't matter. Just as it had been back in Monaco, she knew that his answer would never be enough to subdue her doubts. It would never promise her anything more than his words had the last time they had been together. And it mattered even less now, for the girl who loved Ethan Richardson so wholly had died, leaving behind a shadow yearning to feel warmth again.

But for ghosts like her, things like such were always just out of reach.

[/ul][/blockquote]

[ethan richardson]

Her perfume engulfed him,

[/color] pulling him into a fairytale he no longer believed in. It was a tale of a young prince who had been cursed to spend his days without a heart – a curse he could tell no one of. For a time he spent his time searching for something to replace what had been stolen from him. All he found was fleeting, lasting only long enough to numb the void his heart had left. As he grew, the prince became convinced that he did not need a heart after all. Instead he grew contented with the transient pleasures of life. It was then, in the moment he had accepted his life and who he was that he met her. This girl was everything he was not. She was made of light and held glittering promise in her brilliant eyes. It was with her that the prince discovered the truth of his curse – it was only once another gave her heart to him freely that he would be set free. But this fairytale did not end in happiness like the stories his aunt had whispered as a young boy. The heart she offered him was poisoned and his acceptance of it had killed the prince at the very moment he had learned to live.

Ethan ground his teeth in frustration at his own stupidity, taking a step backward. He could still taste her lips as they pressed against his; feel the silken strands of her hair as they slipped through his fingers like water. He had loved the girl before, and that realization killed him as he took in everything about her changed appearance. With downcast eyes she slowly combed her hair over her bruised eye attempting to mask herself, but Ethan knew the truth about the girl before him. He knew how she would beg for him to surrender his heart only to walk away without a backward glance. There had been no kindness in her to say goodbye. Instead the image of her back turning, the blushing sky casting soft shadows over her lithe frame had haunted him ever since.

“What are you—” Juliette began. A thousand unspoken questions lay in silent wait between them. Ethan knew there was no safe course, no way to avoid the land mines of their past. He had seen the surprise that flickered across her delicate features when she saw him at the door, her mask slipping momentarily in shame before reverting to the one he recognized most of all. It was beneath the mask of fragility that the true monster lay – the one that promised love only to kill when it was reciprocated. He had always known that he would not be the one to fix her, but Ethan had never counted on Juliette destroying him as well. “Juliette! Who is it?” Krista’s voice rang out, interrupting her friends question. Ethan’s brow rose in silent wonder. It would be better if Juliette didn’t know the truth. Once he was rid of her he would text her roommate and tell her he was running late and to meet him at the club.

“It’s, uh, Joanie! From down the hall. Come to borrow a h-hair straightener,” Juliette called back. With a trembling hand outstretched toward him, she quickly closed the space between them. Ethan made no move toward her, gazing apathetically as her hand brushed against the soft cashmere of his sweater. Her breath was shallow, eyes wide in disbelief as she gently pushed him back into the hall and away from her room. He allowed himself to be guided, making no noise, marveling at how her touch still fit him after all this time. Yet there was still an ounce of foreignness – a coldness that he didn’t recall her having before. The solitary sound of the door clicking into place behind them seemed to bring Juliette’s mind into focus. Her hand fluttered from his chest with lethargic strength, as though it instinctively knew that it belonged with him. “Why have you come?” Her voice trembled, a mere whisper beneath the weight of their shared history.

Ethan pursed his lips, his fingers idly reaching for the platinum chain around his neck. “Apparently I’ve come for a hair straightener,” he said dryly. He nodded once toward the closed door behind her.
“Which I suggest you get if you want your roommate to believe your lie.” He didn’t particularly relish the idea of Krista finding them in the hall together. He could practically hear the fiery words as she accused him. Naturally she would come to the defense of Juliette. It wouldn’t be the first time Juliette deluded someone into believing she was something worth saving.

He had often thought that the loss of love had the power to kill a man. He had seen firsthand how the death of his mother had turned his father into a shell of the man he had once been. As a boy his aunt had regaled Ethan with stories about the brilliant purity of the love his parents had shared for one another. She had told him that it was because of the depth of that love that he had left Ethan in her care. He wanted to know that his son received the love he was no longer capable of giving him. While the stories had been meant to placate a young boy desperate to understand what would cause his own father to abandon him as he grew up Ethan discovered the truth hidden beneath her sugared words: desire and love were interchangeable with loathing.

He knew this; had lived it. Eventually the desire felt toward another turned to loathing as they rejected the heart offered to them. His jaw ached from the tension beneath his carefully hooded expression. He would return to her everything she had given him. Nothing.

“Let’s be serious, Juliette. You don’t really care why I’m here. You never cared about anyone but yourself.”

He had believed her lie once and swore to never fall victim again.

[/blockquote]

[juliette bennet]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[/i][/b][/color] where Juliette Bennet lay, her face crumpled into a few smudgy pillows. "Ethan...Ethan, please." She mumbled into the fabric,her eyes still squeezed shut as she mentally grasped at the fading colors of her dream. " You can't. Don't leave." But the image of Ethan Richardson was fading into wisps, like coils of smoke that blew away with the coastal winds. It did not last. A fragile hand went up to her eye, rubbing away the blurred edges of sleep and the droplets of sweat that had formed as she had thrashed around when nearing consciousness. Her tense body finally stretched out on the blemished bed. Her breath steadied itself as she relaxed her shoulders. She could hear the drip-drip-drip from the bathroom faucet and the low hum of traffic from the street below. Eyes still shut, she tried to remember where she was. The faint smell of smoke that clung to the blankets told her she had been here before. She inhaled deeply, allowing her lungs to fill with stale air when suddenly a hand wrapped itself around her left shoulder, gripping and cold.

She opened her eyes to the hardened gaze of Matteo Valencia. A former boyfriend, someone she had tried to use to fill the gaps with. A substitute for the when the aching threatened to swallow her whole. Someone to escape with. He had his own problems, that was clear enough when they first met. Newly fired from the art gallery he worked at by his new ex-girlfriend, lonely and angry, Juliette had seen something that sparked familiarity between them. He didn't seem to need or want much from her. But he had money from somewhere and allowed her to stick around. They were just bodies to one another, talking only when necessary. Only when one was asking the other to pass the lighter or the syringe. Whatever it was, the relationship grew into a dependency. More than the alcohol they drank or the drugs they took, the two had started to feed off of one another's company. It was only the night that he had slapped her across the face for crying she had decided to stop.

Since then, she had severed ties with him, forcing herself to stay cooped up in her dorm room instead of seeking solace with the stranger she knew Matteo would always remain. But last night had been a slip. She knew immediately after ending the call that he had changed. His voice had a cold edge to it. When they met, she could see the crinkles in his eyes, hard with a sentiment that hadn't been there before. If he had been lost before, he had found himself, but it was a different himself. " Who the fuck is he, Juliette?" His tone was strange, harsher than she had ever heard it. His grip tightened and he yanked hard, pulling her up and away from the bed. The girl scrambled to regain footing as she blinked cheerlessly at him. No words had come.

He repeated himself, the edge growing crueler with each word. He pulled hard, ripping her away from the bed to a half standing posture. Again she had no answer. Jealously flashed in his auburn eyes as he pushed her roughly towards the door. " Get out."

- - - - - - - - - -

“Let’s be serious, Juliette. You don’t really care why I’m here. You never cared about anyone but yourself.”

His words cut into her like arrows. Deep, they twisted their way in with sharpened hooks attached to make removal utterly fatal. Juliette could feel the blow of his words shatter against her, breaking like ocean waves against a rock. But she was not like a rock. She was defenseless and already so broken down. Her dark jade eyes revealed nothing. Nothing but an emptiness she was used to sharing with those who sought to find her. She had replaced all sense of herself a long time ago, with a veneer that betrayed nothing. But inside, she was rupturing with the pain his face brought to her, the pain his words brought to her. They coursed through her veins like venom, it would only be a short while until they killed her.

Without meaning to, the girl let a single tear drop from her wet lashes, splattering against the cold grey concrete beneath them. For a split second, the veneer had cracked, smashed against the riptide of hurt she felt herself get pulled into. Everything he accused of her, everything they had gone through together was now synthesized into that single slip. She was defeated but there was no victor. She wished for nothing more than to return to the time where he held her close, whispering into her ear. A time where a happy ending had existed for them. A time where she was whole again. But staring into his flat gaze now, that hope had long since died away. She was no longer Juliette and he no longer Ethan. They were strangers.

A quick flicker to the eye with her finger, she resumed her mask. Empty, impassive. Nothing. She had nothing to say, nothing that would convince him that everything she had felt for him was real, once upon a time. Turning, she wrapped her fingers around the door knob, her hand unsteadily grappling the rusty metallic knob. The venom had seeped into her heart, rippling through her body with uneven force, threatening to kill her in his stead.

She didn't understand. She had already died once in his presence.
Was that not enough?

[/ul][/blockquote]

[ethan richardson]

A lifetime had passed

[/color]since that day – the day that haunted his dreams, his every thought.

She turned from him without a word, her shoulders angled forward in a protective embrace. His eyes darkened as they trailed the once familiar curves of her figure. This moment, her back turned from him– these were all etched indelibly into his mind. Ethan knew what would follow, the gentle sway of her hips as she walked from him for a second time. He knew the number of steps it would take her to disappear from sight but never from mind. As he studied her slender frame, Ethan realized how wrong he had been. There would be no escape from the hold she held over him. Her name was enough to breathe life into his dust-filled bones. In that moment he wanted nothing more than to go back to that day at Notre Dame and be a different boy – one deserving of her. One who would nurture the youthful optimism that had shone in her emerald eyes rather than destroy it.

Juliette had given up just as he had begun to believe and he wasn’t certain that he could forgive her for.

Before he realized his actions, Ethan had crossed the hall until he stood by her side. Her soft golden hair fell in delicate waves across her sharpened shoulders, caressing the smooth skin he longed to touch one final time. Words no longer existed between them, silence expressing the deepest sentiments of their hearts. As she turned her head to peer up at him, Ethan saw all that he required. There was no softening in her eyes; no love or desire. Instead he saw regret shadowing the eyes that had always seen through him. It resonated within him, awakening the piece of his soul that belonged only to her. His hand wrapped around hers, holding her there alongside him. He silently licked his lips, his cerulean eyes never leaving the sight of their hands as they were meant to be. They were two pieces of the same broken puzzle and without the other there was no survival.

“Am I really that easy to walk away from?” he murmured, gently removing his hand from hers. He knew he was treading on thinning ice – if this was to be their end he needed to hear her say the words that accompanied her actions. He had lived in apathetic confusion for too long – they both had. After all they had shared they both deserved a proper funeral. “Because if it is I need to know your secret,” he continued. Tucking his hand into the soft sleeve of his sweater he reached up and tenderly wiped the tear from her face, marveling how that small glimpse of emotion had almost returned the girl he had originally fallen in love with to him. But neither of them remained the same now. Each of them were scarred and battered and Ethan knew that whatever was to come next would irrevocably alter them both.

“Do you remember Monaco – what was said that night? Because I do. It’s all I think of, Juliette. It’s all I know. And I still mean those words. Because it’s too late for me. I can’t go back. You can walk away right now and know that I will never be here again. You’re still the only good thing about me.”

Although they may have both surrendered to the battle, it continued.

[/blockquote]

[juliette bennet]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[/i][/b][/color] slip into hers. A shock rippled through her, unfastening her from the door knob. The touch that she had longed for after so many months was threatening to demolish her whole. She swayed slightly, her eyes shutting tiredly as her forehead met the cool wood of the door. She could feel her heart beat in her ears, yearning to hear his voice again. Not the cold stern tone he held with her, but the soft, wondering sound of his words as they left his lips. The sound that had once filled her this warmth she couldn't explain.

How did you find me? she wanted to ask. The thought had crossed her mind since the day they met. How had he, through all the dust in their lives managed to find her? Juliette let go of the door knob with her free hand, balling it into a tight fist as they stood in the infinite silence. The girl was crumbling. Beneath her crystallized shell, his touch was causing her to fall apart all over again.

“Am I really that easy to walk away from?”

It was different now. She could hear him. Fragile and breaking as she had been. His words now leaked hope into their presence. She could hear it, the faint whispers of their past. But she couldn't feel anything. She had already come undone. Couldn't he tell? Didn't her body show the physical signs of the slow deterioration? Because she felt it. She felt all the pieces of herself strung haphazardly together for the meantime. Only, there only ever was a "meanwhile." She had only the present. The future was no longer hers. It was Ethan. In his presence, the carefully knotted lies she held together within simply fell apart. Her past, the bits and pieces she had struggled to hold onto, were his and his alone. Even her memories were his. Nothing she had of herself belonged to her. The girl had lost it all, only breathing was hers. And even that was a struggle.

Because it’s too late for me. I can’t go back. You can walk away right now and know that I will never be here again. You’re still the only good thing about me.”

His hand was gone, no longer within reach. A tear wiped from the soft, bruised skin that stretched across her cheek. She blinked, turning away. Away from his glance, his perfect azure eyes. "I can't." Juliette managed, seizing his each word and immortalizing it in her mind.

"We don't stand a chance," she mumbled. "We never did." A pause fell in between them as she mustered what she had inside her.

"I Don't you see? What I have is already yours. And it's never going to be enough."


[/ul][/blockquote]

[ethan richardson]

Time seemed changed in her presence.

[/color] In the months since Juliette had walked from him each moment blurred into the next with dejected apathy. He could not pin down an instance that stood out in his mind during that time; there were no memories, nothing to hold onto. Yet here, with Juliette before him, Ethan knew he would remember each word spoken, each breath that crossed her lips. Time did not exist without her because she was the only thing that had ever really mattered. He had known this all along but rather than cherish it he had destroyed all they could have shared. She was like a butterfly he had pinned down in a box so he could forever admire but never experience because he had killed the essence of who she was.

He had been a fool.

“I can’t,” she ground out as though each word required all of her remaining strength. “We don’t stand a chance. We never did.”

She was right, of course. They had been doomed from their first meeting. She’d had a boyfriend that day at Notre Dame and he had clung to that truth in order to deny the emotions coursing through him and destroying all of the walls he had so carefully constructed around his heart. He had witnessed how love had destroyed his father, slowly eroding everything until all that remained was a ragged shell. It would be his legacy should he ever fall in love because his days were numbered. His heart wasn’t strong enough. He wasn’t strong enough. Perhaps that had been their downfall: the belief that the other could be their strength. Instead they were both thin and cracked pieces of ice that would collapse beneath the slightest pressure. It would be unfair to reopen the pages of their story and hope for an alternative ending. Ethan could no more rescue Juliette than she could him.

“Don’t you see? What I have is already yours. And it’s never going to be enough.”

All hope died with her words. They couldn’t go back; there was nothing to return to. With a deep breath Ethan carefully compartmentalized the pieces of himself until there was nothing left to feel. To regret. Once he walked away he would not look back on this moment and wonder if he might somehow have altered it. He had been right all along: this, whatever it was, was a mistake that had the capacity to destroy them both.

He would not fall apart ever again.

“My mistake,” he replied, his voice impassive. “Before you go would you mind doing one last thing for me? If it’s not too much to ask – I know I’ve already taken up a lot of your time. But would you mind telling Krista that I’m here? I’m already later picking her up than I had planned and I don’t want her to think me rude.”[/blockquote]