Phoenix Maplewood there was an empty space in the shadow beside you

for days the doubts had worried at her, and yet suddenly they seemed so foolish when Aditya crumbled before her. she moved slowly, at once wary to touch him, the fragile thing he'd become, and it was after a moment that she nosed over his shoulder, circling tightly around him. "no no no," she breathed, ears pressed flat against her skull, unsure of what to do with this frailty that had her suddenly fear, and not for her selfish pride. she had worried so at cementing herself down that she had not considered the alternative, had not considered this. 

 "I feel trapped,"  she said at once, desperate now to stop this frail Adi. "you, leading, our future; I knew - I know where it leads. I know how things'll turn out, and maybe I'll be happy but-" dawn stopped, breath ragged in the stillness, and she realized that she'd much rather Adi yelled, spoke, did something. "it's wrong, it's selfish," she bit down hard on the word mistake, its implications, its meaning.  "but I want that openness, again. but I'm not supposed to want that,"

and in her selfishness, in her doubt, she'd hurt Adi, clawed at him and slashed lines of pain across what they were. she did not know how to fix it could only offer her own heavy thoughts in some desperate attempt to even the playing field. she hated this, for she'd been the one to spill the pieces, and now she did not know how to put them back together.