“Listen, I’m not saying no, I’m just saying…” Im’s heart pounds as she places one foot in front of the other, higher and higher, turning slowly in circles as they slowly approach the apex of the lighthouse. Her boots scrape each step in time with her labored breaths, each echoing in the cement cylinder, just loud enough to be heard over the gulls screaming outside. “I’m just saying not right now. Timing just isn’t right.”
To be honest, the timing was never right. Always this, always that, always the rogue thing trying to end their lives in one big bloody mess. But it was a convenient excuse, and one that usually seemed to slide past the radar without much of a blip.
“Well then, when?” Sam’s nearly a full story ahead of her, peering down over the railing with his hair in his face.
Dammit.
She keeps climbing, pretending to focus on her feet to avoid his eyes. “I don’t know. But do you really think that this would work? That we’d be able to just… go on as normal?” The door down on the bottom floor groans with the weight of the wind, steel buckling on a molecular level, filling the sun-cold lighthouse with the chill of November and just a hint of Hemingway.
“That’s the point.”
She doesn’t realize he’s still stopped until she nearly bumps her head into the back of his knees.
“Normal doesn’t cut it anymore. He’s imploding, Im. If we don’t do something now, he’s going to collapse in on himself and we won’t be able to dig him out.”
Im sighs, ducking her chin into the collar of her jacked to feel the light scrape of the zipper on her lower lip. Flickers of wind brushed the tips of her freezing ears, and she brings her hands up – gloveless – to tug her hat back down.
Sam presses his lips together, waiting for a response, waiting for her to give him anything to use as ammunition against her, waiting for the words to come out of her mouth so he could tuck them into his pocket for later. They could each be so stubborn, a trait they probably picked up from each other, ricocheting off one another until someone could step between. A tennis match from hell. But this was shaping up to be yet another life or death scenario, and he needs her to see things his way.
She just starts up the stairs again, sidling past him against the wall and tilting her gaze upwards. It’s light enough outside that he can see her nose twitch, and she’s obviously uncomfortable enough that she’s avoiding the subject.
“Interventions are so twenty-eighteen.” Im hikes her jeans up, trying to the ragged cuffs from trailing on the rain-damp stairs as best she can, attempt at humor punctuated by a short huff as she skips a step. “If you want to organize a self-help group in the bunker, be my guest.”
“Im…” His tone is beyond exasperated. It’s…tired, and she almost gives in, turns around and walks back down until they’re face to face. But she doesn’t, climbing higher and higher until the ceiling becomes the floor, and she steps out onto the worn wood of the lantern room. The ocean stretches out before her, white peaks forming and disappearing into the horizon, the loud rush of wind past the glass and water smashing against the land making her dizzy. Despite the panes, the steel, the railing, she felt the vertigo of possibility until the tower seemed almost to lean with her, tipping endlessly into the water beneath it. Footsteps ascend behind her and she creeps to the side, putting herself as near dead center as possible.
Sam opens his mouth, and she rushes to speak, say anything before he tries to continue their conversation. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” It wasn’t. She hated it. But he was nodding slightly and glancing around.
A seagull perched on the wide railing just beyond the glass, wind ruffling its feathers. The green of the grass faded into the uneven outcroppings until the land gave way suddenly to the ocean, letting the saltwater eat away at its base as if with the unspoken agreement that they had been one, long ago. Clouds dipped low, refusing to burn off with the afternoon sun, and the cold seeped deep into Im’s body, tinging her stomach with a chill undeterred by her borrowed coat.
The gull stared at the pair, or perhaps its own reflection, and Im stared back, waiting for it to open its red-tipped beak and scream at them. But it just sat in silence, seemingly expecting something similar. Do something exciting. Something new.
A few moments and it rolled its wings back, shaking its head and stepping off the railing, catching a powerful seabound gust underneath it.
Im cleared her throat and glanced up at Sam, only to find him looking at her first.
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