The morning light was a dull, reluctant thing, filtering through the cheap curtains of the dormitory room like water through cheesecloth. He'd been awake for hours, had watched the gray seep into the cracks between the blinds, had counted the minutes between the hum of the fluorescent lights in the corridor and the distant sounds of other students beginning to stir.
He didn't move. His maroon hair blowing in the wind.
Black.
The sheets were tangled around his legs, a knot of fabric he'd twisted during the night, fighting dreams he couldn't quite remember. His hands lay flat on the mattress beside him, palms up, his skinny fingers curled slightly.
White.
He counted his breaths, letting them anchor him to the room. The walls were too white, the furniture too new, the silence too heavy. It was a borrowed space, a temporary holding cell for someone who'd never quite learned how to settle anywhere. Even the bed felt wrong, the mattress too soft, the pillows too plump, nothing like the narrow cot he'd slept on as a child.
[Nothing like the floor]
Seraphina's face appeared behind his closed lids, pink hair catching the aquarium light, amber eyes wide at the jellyfish. The sound she'd made when the shark passed overhead, that soft, involuntary breath. The way she'd tucked her hands into her sleeves when she got nervous, disappearing into fabric that was too big for her, like she was trying to make herself smaller, less noticeable.
[I remember playing together]
He'd noticed.
[At the Walker estate with her]
Edward sat up, the movement sudden, violent almost, as if he could shake the thoughts loose from his skull. The room tilted, steadied.
Black.
His vision went black from standing up too fast.
His feet found the floor, the cold seeping through his socks, grounding him in something physical.
Low iron.
He crossed to the window, pushed the curtain aside. The courtyard below was still a ruin, craters like wounds in the earth, the fountain scattered in pieces across what had once been grass.
[I should eat better]
Students moved through it now, small figures in dark uniforms, picking their way through the debris like mourners at a grave site.
[But I can't help it. I don't want to eat.]
His hands tightened on the windowsill. The wood was cold, unyielding. He focused on that, on the pressure against his palms, the ache in his fingers. Anything to drown out the voice in his head, the one that sounded like Sarah, that whispered poison in the quiet hours of the morning.
{You love that girl. You've loved her for years.}
The serpent deceives Eve with the apple.
"I know," he said, and the words were ash in his mouth.
Pandora opens the box.
He turned from the window. The bathroom door was half-open, the light inside off, the air beyond it still and cool.
Sweat.
The air only blows to the front.
He walked toward it, his footsteps too loud on the polished floor, his reflection sliding across the mirror in fragments as he passed.
The bathroom was small, functional.
Claustrophobic.
The kind of space designed by people who didn't expect anyone to spend more time in it than absolutely necessary.
White tile.
Chrome fixtures.
A shower stall with a glass door that fogged too easily and never quite drained right.
He closed the door behind him.
The click of the lock was loud in the silence, final.
He stood there for a moment, his hand leaned on the wall, sweat pouring down his forehead, his eyes fixed on his own face in the mirror above the sink.
{I could give you what you want. Not forever, perhaps. But long enough.}
Dark eyes stared back at him. Not Edward's eyes.
Black
There was something in them now that hadn't been there before the aquarium, something hungry and desperate and afraid.
He looked away.
The shower stall
Cold.
The tile rough against his bare feet.
He reached for the handle, twisted it too far, too fast, and the water that came out was scalding.
Burning hot.
Steam rising in clouds that fogged the glass, that blurred the edges of the room until nothing was distinct anymore.
He didn't adjust it. He stood under the spray, letting it burn, his skin scalding.
The heat pressed against his skin, forcing his muscles to unclench, his lungs to draw breath.
Sweat streamed down his face, his chest, his arms, mixing with the water and pooling at his feet before swirling toward the drain. He watched it go, watched it disappear into the dark, and thought of all the things he'd let slip away without reaching for them.
{You watched her from afar, too afraid to speak. Too aware of your own place in the world to reach for someone so far above you.}
His hands pressed flat against the tile wall.
The water beat against his back, a rhythm that might have been calming if he'd let it be.
[I was a servant at the Shaw estate, sitting down, just painfully watching as the two of them made love to each other. How disgusting.]
He pressed his forehead against the tile, let the cold seep into his skin, a counterpoint to the heat of the water. His breath fogged the surface, clouding his reflection until he was just a shape, just a presence, just the space where a person might have been.
[He's rich, he's handsome, he's strong. He has everything]
His hands curled into fists. The tile scraped against his knuckles, a small pain, easily ignored.
[I remember when we were small, I always thought, I always thought that I would be the main character of the love story, the underdog who gets the princess]
He thought of the aquarium. The way Seraphina had looked at Dominic in the shark tunnel, her face soft, her eyes bright. The way she'd tucked her hair behind her ear, a nervous gesture he'd seen her make a thousand times, but never for him.
[That stupid grin of his. I hate that stupid grin of his]
He thought of the moment she'd touched his arm, her fingers light, fleeting, there and gone before he could even react.
[You're the only thing I see. You've always been the only thing.]
The water was cooling now, the steam thinning, the edges of the room coming back into focus.
[Why does he get everything? And I get nothing. I always get nothing. He does nothing and gets everything. I get nothing]
He turned the handle, let the last of it run over his hands, his wrists, the places where the scars were, the places he'd cut when the silence got too loud and the wanting got too heavy.
Jealousy.
He hadn't done that in years. Not since he'd left the Shaw estate. Not since he'd learned to bury the pain so deep it became part of him, indistinguishable from the rest.
Envy.
The water stopped. The silence rushed in to fill it, louder than before.
Empty.
He stood in the stall for a long moment, dripping, shivering, his skin red from the heat.
[Lady Jaune, please help this pitiful soul over some trivial matter of live]
His reflection in the fogged glass was a blur, a smear of color where his face should be. He reached out, wiped a circle clear, and looked at himself.
{What do you want?}
[What do I want?]
"I thought wanting was simple. Either I could have it or I couldn't]
Desire eats away at the soul.
He'd done nothing. He'd watched. He'd waited. He'd told himself that she deserved better, that she deserved someone who could make her laugh, someone who could look at her without all the weight of years and silence and things left unsaid.
{You could have her. Not forever, perhaps. But long enough.}
He closed his eyes. The image came unbidden
Seraphina
Turning to him, her eyes soft, her hand reaching for his.
His eyes opened. The bathroom was cold now, the steam gone, the heat drained away with the water. His reflection stared back at him, pale.
Empty.
"You're not a killer,"
Liar.
"You're not the person she wants you to be."
Insecurity.
{What do you want?}
He stepped out of the shower, the air cold against his damp skin. His clothes were folded on the counter, neat, precise, the way he always left them. He dressed slowly, the fabric rough against his still-warm skin, grounding him in the present, in the small rituals that kept the chaos at bay.
The mirror was clear now, the fog evaporated, and his reflection looked back at him, composed, controlled, the face he wore when the world was watching. He held his own gaze for a long moment, searching for something he wasn't sure was there.
[I want to be seen]
[I want to matter to her]
He turned away from the mirror, walked out of the bathroom, and stood in the center of his room, listening to the silence. The bed was unmade, the sheets tangled. His books were stacked by the window, his notes spread across the desk, everything in its place.
He moved to the window, looked out at the courtyard. The students were gone now, the ruins empty, the morning light thin and cold. In the distance, he could see the library, the dining hall, the training grounds.
Seraphina
Alone in her room, her pink hair loose, her hands hidden in her sleeves.
Her voice.
"Just one chance."
8 days until Seraphina's death.