tearlessly // frumtum

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I keep having to pinch myself awake. We're out of the capitol, long gone, out in the hills and closer to the ocean than we've been in years and, and, we're not so far from where we once were. That's the best, the only part that matters to me. We're going, making our own way, even after all this time. The world has never felt so crisp between my toes, no better than the mornings I've woken up next to Freya in my arms. I guess I should have known that the air around the capitol weighed us down, but I didn't expect to be lifted so freely. So much for the way things were, so much for what things were. It's a new world, out there, begging for us to explore, to crawl through if we can just get the chance.

It doesn't matter, either, that we've nearly run out of water. No, my throat scratches and the world is hot when it's not cold (because the nights dip down to freezing, so cold that my nose drips) but how to feel alive again. It's like I've woken from a long sleep, and though my arms and legs still need waking, I want to run up and out of bed to see everything. This is our beginning, this is out new form - a world untouched, a world unseen. Sweat drips down my cheeks and my stomach aches but I've never wanted anything more than to have Freya Hanig laying next to me. Forever. Because the world has never been bigger than with her taking each step with me; because the world has never been smaller than when she and I close our eyes at night.

It's all meant to be happy, for us to find what we've been so breathlessly looking - a little happiness between our fingers. Maybe it's the moments when I get to see her hair blowing in the wind, or the way she crinkles her nose when her eyes catch the sunlight, but I can feel my heart rum tum tumming. I can feel it between us, what's been gone so long and now, I want it to be back, to stay forever. I know it can't ever stay, that we're marked and dangerous, that this whole world is ready to collapse on us, but, just for this minute, while she sleeps and I crack my eye open, can we be happy? A little happiness never cost anyone the world. I just thought that it might be the only thing someone in love might have when everything else is gone.

But the moment, the little moment here in our desert - a sea of red and orange, with great big rocks and skies of sea blue - passes to the next, and she wakes. She is Freya, my not quite princess (would she kill me if I called her that?). And I snooze, listening as she rummages through the last of the water, of all the things that we so need to hold onto. We haven't been able to find water in days, we haven't been holding onto our food, and now I haven't told her but the fever that came yesterday afternoon hasn't left me either. But I won't tell her, because she would worry, and there is nothing worse than Freya Hanig worried. She is a universe collapsing on itself in worry, a woman whose own gravity could slow down time and rip space apart. One of us needs to be the sun, and keep us turning. I've always been better at putting my foot forward, even if it costs a little extra.

Except now she's moving, she's moving away and opening something - something - what has she got in her fingers. Olivia's notes. She had her man give me the notes, the precious little things that they all wanted to fight over for the better of the capitol or whatever it was that she was saying. They were important, I know this because she drizzled wax on them and stamped a heavy metal stamp so that they couldn't be opened without it being known. Except now Freya's gone and ruined the wax, she's gone and looked at all the things I promised I wouldn't see. I didn't want to see them, to see whatever they were because I knew, I knew that there would be no good of knowing. She calls me a liar, she looks up and I hear the words and at first I want to laugh - are we playing make believe? But she's crying, she's crying that this is terrible, that the world is threatened and I - I drip with sweat and shake, feeling cold.

She's always gotten caught up in the world, seeing right and wrong as things to fight against. I love her for it and I get so tired, so heavy when she talks about things that I'll never understand. The capitol fighting with the districts, chaining people up and making their lives fall apart all over some land. Well, there's plenty of land out here, there's plenty of space for everyone now. Why do we have to fight one another, if we have so much? I suppose it's that there always has to be someone on top, and that people like to feel important but me? This world isn't mine. My world is right in front of me and she's crying, she's furious that I could have ever done such a terrible, no good thing. And I want to believe that I can fix this, because everything can be fixed, but I know that we're a long way from where we started - a long way from patching up what's already scarred.

"Freya..." My voice is horse and I try to stand. I can't at first, my head swims and I see yellow behind my eyes. I pause and breathe, and try again. "Freya I didn't..." I can stand. "I didn't know, I don't know, what are you -" But it's not all untrue. Olivia was not a good person, or a bad person - she was a person that wanted things, and that meant she was going to play to get them. And I wanted... I wanted to make the world my own, to take Freya and get away. Because I was selfish, and she was the only thing that mattered. I deserved as much, at least, I wanted to think that I did. So I took Olivia's papers, and I told her that I would do whatever it is they needed. "I'm... I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" I say now, stepping closer to where she is, looking out at the vastness of the canyon.

"Whatever I did, I did it for us, I did it because you deserved better. We deserve better than what we've gotten."

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Freya boils and I know—all these years and I’ve finally found when she’s about to burst. The red in her face, the call of her voice that ticks up and makes my cheeks burn, there she goes. Trust. She lays out the truth, what I’ve been dying to escape, that I’ve been selfish once again. Can’t she understand? We’ve only had so many chances, and here we are, looking out at this great expanse and we’re not held back by the capitol, the districts, by any of the weight that’s been put upon us. I made the choice to do what needed to be done because I loved her. I did it because I didn’t have any other choice. I did it because I was afraid of losing you again, I want to say it but I know it’s not all true, that it’s mostly true but that I don’t get to decide whether she stays or goes. It was me wanting her not to go away, fighting the world like I always have, and this time, this time I got her to go with me.

There are figures, facts, lines, all manner of writings in the papers that Olivia has left me. They are death between pages, of futures meant to end over a war that hasn’t started. And I am, in a universe where I’ve never meant anything, a linchpin. Her parents, her neighbors, near half the capitol could be wiped out in a blink because—I was a knobby headed idiot. Why did I think anything of Olivia other than she wanted to hurt people? She’d been so kind to me, taken me in, let me live. But it wasn’t true, it wasn’t that she cared. Olivia had wanted me because I was an outsider, I knew how to get between these districts and I knew where I could go not to be found. And she knew that I needed her, that she could give us a chance if I thought we were more important than anything that could happen to the people that I’d never know.

“I made a mistake…” I whisper out, the words caught up in my throat. Cottonmouth comes, and my eyelids twitch. Freya yells again, but this time, it’s that I need to lie back against the tree and rest. I shiver, arms across my chest and my eyes closing. “Don’t go too far away…” I’m crying now, too—I feel like a child. I can imagine when I was little, and my mother used to wander away for hours at a time to get us food. I was so scared, huddled underneath a blanket in the dead of night. I was supposed to sleep but how could I sleep without her, without the only person that had been my whole world? I don’t want to be alone; I’ve never wanted to be alone. When you’ve been with yourself, and found yourself, you know what being lost really is. It’s not the unknowing of things, but without someone to share it with, to see the blues of the ocean or the white of the clouds, the universe is too big. We’re not meant to go it alone.

When we were just kids, I thought the world was just us. Wasn’t it so much better to think that all of this was just ours, that we’d never have to be a part of anything else? But we can’t sit on roller coasters or live in light houses forever. We’re not a world unto ourselves—which is where all the pain, the disappointment, and fear has come from. How are we supposed to survive in a place that never wanted us to exist in the first place? But that’s not true. We both existed for each other, because we lived for each other and we loved each other. Love, not loved. I love her, I love her and how angry she is, how right she is, how much she cares about everyone who’s ever hurt her, still. Maybe growing up is taking all of that and realizing what it’s really worth to being a part of, and loving that. We can never leave forever but we can know how to live without it.

I take a deep breath and move to my knees. I’m still dizzy, but I can’t sit still. I stand, gathering the satchel of documents. I take step after faltering step toward the canyon. I pause to watch the wind blow a scattering of dust into the canyon below. I lean back, and swing the satchel as hard as I can from my hands, wrenching the thing into the air. The papers scatter and float away, spilling out into the expanse below. I crouch down on my knees again, and take fistfuls of dirt. I’d cry if it weren’t so damn hot.

Maybe things will be different, maybe Olivia already knew what I would do. But if I’m going to die it’s not because I’m not living for other people.

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It must have taken a long time for the earth to make this great big hole. The reds, the oranges, and now, sun setting purple hues take shape along the edges of the rock. How long has Freya been gone? Is she coming back? I want her to be here, I don't want to be alone. We weren't supposed to separate again. Every time we're apart something terrible happens - I always bring it out, and there she goes, falling into disappointment because of me. I think my life must have a shroud following it because anyone that's ever been a part of it just suffers, they suffer like I bring the bad to them. It's my fault, just existing. That's what you want me to think, right? The universe is supposed to have cast some kind of judgment on me, when all the people in my life just move on, die, or disappear. I should fall apart and disappear, scatter across the rocks like the dust between my toes.

But I'm not gonna.

Why should you keep going, Rum Tum? Why should you keep pushing back up that hill, when you keep falling down and landing in the dirt? Aren't you tired? I am. Aren't you disappointed that you never made anything out of this, out of what you were given? No. And that's the chord that strikes, that for some people they never find. I don't care about the way the cards have landed. Because there are some things, in this great big universe, that you can't control, and some things I've got to take responsibility for. These rocks may have been worn but they haven't crumbled yet, not after who knows how long. I'm not going to crumble yet, not even when I feel like I want to close my eyes and sleep forever. It's too hot, too hot for me to do anything. I crawl with my knees in the dirt back to the tree, into the shade, and I shiver. The sun is going down below the rocks now, and purple fills the sky.

I think about the endlessness of the canyon behind closed eyes. I think about how much Benat would've liked to have seen the rocks - because he was like me, he was my other half. Is it strange when you always felt a part of you was missing, but now you know there was supposed to be more? There's a hole I can't fill, I'll never fill with all the living I've done. I have to keep moving, I have to press on. There was a family far away, behind a fence and in corn fields that shares my blood, but they don't want me. That's no family at all. But then there's no one else for me, no one that would ever know what it was like. Except maybe Freya, and she's had to turn away from her only flesh and blood just to be with me. Why does she want to be with me, anyway?

There's crickets here. And a soft, warm breeze across my face. The last time I felt so full of nature was seventeen, in the dunes of the beach and along the ocean. The wind would go back and forth through my hair and I could see the stars a lit up at night. Are these the same stars? Of course they must be, stars don't die for years and years. Freya taught me that. Freya. I open my eyes and it's dark now, the world quiet and empty. If she's gone, I won't be long after her. That's what I decide, staring off into the gorge. Not that I'm going to throw myself and break into a million pieces, but I can feel it in my chest, that there's not much more to push on to. What's the point in being alone here, if it means all this wonder gets lost on me? And I'm so tired, maybe I'll just sleep a hundred years. Or I'll close my eyes, and I won't fight the cold.

But there she is - is it a dream? And I open my eyes, and watch her come, silently, breathlessly, with the water that I need. Coming to save me from myself, I reach out to take one of the water bottles. I drink, and drink, and drink. We don't say anything. The world is still and she is still and we go on like this as though we are the rocks in the canyon, waiting to be changed. Maybe my words don't mean enough because I'm stupid, because what I've done doesn't have an answer, because how could I ever explain what I don't understand? But we're not rocks, and I look at Freya and I see that whatever anger is there can be sculpted, chipped away and removed. And so I clear my throat and lick my lips. "Thank you." Is a good a start as any, I guess. "Thank you Freya."

And I don't say anything again for another minute, because sometimes finding the words is better than blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. I don't say that it wasn't all my fault, or that I was tricked. I don't try to reason that I was doing what anyone else would have done. I don't try to point out that Olivia is evil, and that the capitol has always been out to get anyone that stood in their way. Instead I think about Freya, and how much I love her. I think about how sad I am that she's had to put up with everything that I've brought her. And I wonder if she'll let me hold her tonight, when the sun and moon are trading places.

"You're smarter than me." I say, closing my eyes. "And you see what I should've seen." I take a breath. "I should've wanted to know, or tried to find another way. But this was easy, and I wanted to be with you so badly, to make things like they were before. So I did it." And that's the truth, the uneasy words all out in the air. "Except it can't be like that because we're not like that. And I've never wanted to be someone that's a part of... that world." I look out toward the canyon and nod. "It's done, now. I threw it all away." She has to know what that means, destroying what Olivia gave me. "I don't care about what happens, just as long as I get to spend a little more time with you."

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inspired by abby's template