If A Tree Falls

By spheeris1

       

I didn't disappear.

I didn't become a shell of a boy, a man made of scar tissue.

I didn't feel too cold or too hot.

I just walked.

Until my feet hurt, until the arches fell and the toes bled, until the rubber wore through. And here I am, at your door.

It's like seeing someone you attended school with.

Old habits never die when you walk those familiar halls again.. .they come rushing back with a vengeance of all you have lost.

My eyes try to become hard. Your voice tries for softness.

I hold the porcelain cup and fear it will shatter in my grip, scalding tea spilling over onto my hand.

And I imaging you sucking the Earl Grey off my fingers.

You tell me of your life and I listen.

I listen to the words that you don't say, the words you slide in-between the lines slipping past your lips.

'I've traveled so far.'

'I saw Duo a couple weeks ago.'

'I guess I am happy.'

I say nothing. Just listen. Just pretending for a moment that years have not passed us by, so many hours ticked off from the moment we met, the moment you smiled at me, the moment you broke down and I held you too close and I heard something shatter inside.

I heard the crack and the snap, I felt the shudder in the ground of my body.

'I hope you come back soon. It's good to see you again.'

'Don't leave…not yet…I know you'll never come back.'

       

'Quatre?' '

Hmm?'

'You know that saying about if a tree falls and no one is in the forest to hear it, did it really happen.'

'Yes..'

'It happened.'

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