OCKiss Day 3: Heartbreak!
Essence Of Heartbreak.ďżź
âEyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace!And, lips, O, you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing deathâŚâ
Orpheusâ voice broke on the last line as he lowered his mouth to Jocelynâs.
Her lips were cooling beneath his. Soft and unanswering, while tears escaped him without permission, hot and useless against the steady theft of her warmth. He gathered her closer, as if his arms could bargain with fate, as if holding her tight enough could convince the world she belonged here.
But the world did not bargain.
The weight of her slack form settled into his hands like a verdict, and his heart, so careful, so guarded⌠shattered with a sound he felt more than heard.
Orpheus gasped and lurched upright.
Darkness. Sheets twisted around his legs. The furious hammer of his own pulse. For one nauseating second he could still taste her. He could still feel the ghost of that kiss. His eyes found the book sliding down into his lap.
Romeo and Juliet.
He glared at the cover like it had crawled there on its own.
âCarina and her damn books,â he muttered, voice raw, and flung the leather-bound volume to the floor.
His cousinâs scolding later would be survivable. The idea that the dream could be anything more than fiction, anything more than words and inkâŚwas not.
He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, trying to scrape off the chill crawling over his skin. The gooseflesh didnât fade. Neither did the dream.
Jocelyn. Limp. Cold. Gone.
He swallowed hard and pressed his palms to his face, but the darkness behind his eyes only offered something older, something worse.
Flames.
He could still see them, bright and hungry, licking up the wood. Could still hear the way his mother screamed his name. Could still feel his own body locking, useless and frozen, while the world did its ugly work.
He dragged a shaking breath through his teeth.
âDamn it.â
Orpheus slid out of bed and dropped into a crouch, fingers finding the hidden catch beneath the floorboard. The wood lifted with a soft, practiced give. He reached into the hollow space and drew out his cache, bones wrapped in cloth, tokens polished smooth by worry and use.
The bones never lied.
The lead root doctor of the Gullah Geechee had taught him to read them, patient hands, steady voice, a faith that did not demand he be perfect to be real. They had been good to him and his mother, despite every difference the nonmagical world feared.
He exhaled, guilt pinching tight. Heâd been neglecting this. Neglecting himself.
Orpheus sat cross-legged on the floor and spread his makeshift altar with reverence that felt like desperation. The cloth. The bones. The small, familiar geometry of ritual. His fingers steadied as he rolled.
The clatter was quiet.
The answer was not.
His spine went rigid.
No. No, no! He rolled again. And again. Different angles, different questions, different pleas. He chased possibility through every arrangement his hands could coax from the pieces.
The bones kept returning the same truth, as blunt as a knife.
Jocelyn.
Doomed.
A curse tore out of him, low and vicious, and he snatched another tool from the cache, tarot cards Carina had gifted him, tucked away like a joke heâd pretended not to appreciate. He shuffled until his fingers ached, until the edges warmed and softened under the friction of panic.
He laid the cards down.
The same story.
He reshuffled. Drew again.
The same.
Again.
Always the same.
The pain in his chest sharpened, twisting into something breathless. He stared at the spread until the symbols blurred, until the room seemed to tilt around him. His heart broke in slow increments, each draw another turn of the blade.
Heâd grown too attached.
And now the universe was collecting its due.
Orpheusâ hand rose to his mouth without thinking, fingertips brushing his lips as if to reassure himself they were still his, still warm, still untouched by tragedy. But the dream-kiss clung to him, haunting, tender, cruel. Like a spell he couldnât shake.
He leaned back against the bed, breathing shallow, eyes fixed on the cards as if staring could change them.
Could he save himself from this heartbreak?
Could he save her?
Orpheus closed his eyes, and in the dark behind them, Jocelynâs cooling mouth waited for him again⌠an answer he refused to accept.
All hail the Orphelyn Ship! Beautiful Jocelyn Bell belongs to my beloved @creampuffcloudsdreaming!
