// No Sugarcoating Here Oops - Blog Posts

Leyla usually tried to keep her looking back to therapy sessions, especially to that time, this man. However, looking directly at him made that part hard to ignore. If she was supposed to feel any relief he was still alive, it was jumbled up in all the other emotions she was rapidly trying to process. Fury was winning out as she stared at her own personal nightmare.

She waited for an explanation, one she hoped would be just stumbling through, not here to hurt kind, trusting people. None was offered as he looked at her like he was just struck dumb. "Yes, I do," she snipped, "I finally started my own business. It's called Mawk Tales, it's here on the coast." Part of her still told him like she hoped he'd be proud, but if he actually said that, she might lose her shit in front of all of these people. "What are you doing here? These people still trust--at least most of them seem to, and you and I both know that you are not built to hold anyone's trust."

Vitus had lost the borders of his twenties to a head-fogged downward spiral, crafted by his parents and accelerated by his own hand. Without structure, his memories had buckled and bent inward toward each other. Some had collapsed entirely. He'd carried the pieces with him ever since. And now, up from the rubble of those years, Leyla rose like pinpoint-sharp debris, resurrected. She brought the same blaze with which she'd bitten him during those last few conversations they had. Her rage had followed him cross-country back then, bleeding across the width of the States. Before his eyes had even finished clearing, his skin began to itch. With flame, with scar tissue, with memory.

She looked the same. No, she looked better, healthier, than he recalled. Even as decade-old remorse slammed him sideways, squeezing all the breath from his lungs at once, he couldn't help but feel a touch of relief at that. Despite everything, she'd made it to her thirties. So many other loved ones from back then hadn't. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came right away, so he closed it again. Another few blinks, like he couldn't be sure she was real. And then, stupidly, quietly, "Leyla? What are you—What? You live here now?"