. burnout

[lily mccarthy]

"I know you," she says softly. The undercurrent of another word present. She could have chosen it again, that I love you, could have described it as scary or strange or sweet. But she understands this better. The quick study of his eyes and the hollowed sound of his laugh. What he'd want to do next, what more he could or wouldn't say. Years of moments and almost's and what if's drifting between them until they settled here, stepping away from one another in the warm lights of their tenured history. She had a funny thing with diners, she guessed. Two now held different pieces of her heart. Lily clicked the unlock button on her keypad, taillights on her vintage Jeep illuminating them in a glaring shade of red. She'd always remember this, she knew. The way his silhouette spilled onto the pavement, the silly flip of her heart when she'd caught his smile. The hesitance of it, how they could say so much with so little, or spill hours and hours down phone lines until their voices ran short. She wouldn't be where she was now without him and that's what she chooses to take from it all. Lips pulling carefully into a sincere smile, hand tilted into the air in the curl of a wave. "See you in New York," Lily mentions, taking another step back as she drifted toward her car. "I'll be in that crowd somewhere. Promise."

[isaac mcavoy]

The neon light of the diner sign is casting a halo around her head, framing her perfect face. It burns into his memory, one he knows he will revisit over and over for the next few weeks, months, decades. If this was a choose your own adventure situation he would exit game and go back to a previous save, opting to say something else, to actually do something, desperate to see if it could change the outcome. Though he senses that whatever he would have said or done, the damage was already there - a cavern stood between them where once there had been none, a level of intimacy he hadn't felt since his teens, fumbling around in the dark with Chloe, madly in love for the first time. Maybe this is going to be the last time. There's an ache that's developing in his chest and he'll have to work to channel it into music and not destruction. "I know you too, you know." It's unnecessarily defensive, weak even, but he hates how much his bad behaviour tends to dominate conversations, leaving Lily with little space to breathe. She makes a move towards her car and he feels that one last thrust towards making a move himself, but he lets it happen, the promise of a reunion on the other side of the country easing the fear of what was to come. "Yeah. And I yours."

[lily mccarthy]

"I know," she confirms, letting it be. Not pushing back, not asking for more, not leaving his head spinning rapidly with an ill-timed do you? Because he did. They both did, ever aware of every consequence and impossibility that this faced and choosing to test something anyway. Now contending with letting it go, Lily unsure where this left them but at peace with allowing time be a deciding factor. Maybe they’d wander back to one another, one day. Or maybe they’d find happiness elsewhere, drifting into an old friendship and a gentle acknowledgment of this raw past. She didn’t know, plenty to chase and pursue in her music in the interim. Aware she’d find his eyes in a heartbeat from a stage, turning away from them now with a gentle "goodbye".