Fox's Glade My silent lips

she felt awful for the diversion she had created -- but at least her lie had not been malicious. she told herself it was just an omission, a slight change of truth's narrative -- because it was not her story to tell, but laurel's.

xan intoned merrick understood the reason his mama had left him; but did he truly? indra had never understood why saena and reek had treated her like disposal, and yet, merrick could? doubt flashed across her features, chased then by the ghost of quiet resentment.

then came the apologies. god, what good did an apology ever do? could it change the past, or raise the dead? apologies were just the empty words between actions, bridging the then and now -- a murmur of sound offered by the author to soothe their inner discomfiture.

indra withdrew; the budding moment of vulnerability and intimacy shriveled like a withered plant. "i'm sorry too," yet the sorry left her lips in a sardonic way, a bitter way -- because "sorry" changed nothing, and the world still sucked.