Mae 🌲

He looks at her reflection. She doesn't pay him any mind; just keeps playing on her phone. "What's sad?" he repeats.

"This. Faking the hero shit." Her voice is so unaffected, it's starting to remind him of his own. "And the worst is that I know you could be more than that. You could so easily be a hero. The love of the people would be real. The headlines wouldn't be written by Ashley. I'd have fallen in love with you twice over. But you just… don't." Her words are little dreams, and when she stops speaking, he watches them tumble off the table edge and shatter.

He finds himself staring at the ground for quite some time, looking for shards. He blinks himself awake. "It's too late now," he mumbles.