"Without you, I am surely the last of my kind
We had a lot to measure
We had more past than pleasure
And time grows deep like weeds
You catch me when I'm falling
Sometimes, I wish you wouldn't
I can't tell if I'm learning"
Lucy Dacus's "Dream State..."
His heart.
Oh god his heart.
It was shredded inside of him as he watched her ghost vanish like that. It was as if she was mad at him, even though Bucky knew better than that. She longed for him to seek friends, to have another reason to live other than her. He knew it was his guilt building up into something combustible. And it was his insides that were ready to burst and catch on fire. His hands were shaking, and so he thrust them into his coat pockets.
The latch on the inside rattled, and then Lillian opened the door. Her brown hair was tousled and natural. There was no makeup on her face, and that reminded Bucky of Ophelia. She was always as natural as possible. Though they looked nothing alike, Lillian was Black, her eyes were a rich brown, and she was leaner than Ophelia, taller too. The piercings in her ears, lip, and nose were also something Bucky never would have seen on Ophelia in a million years.
But when Lillian smiled, it lit up her eyes like O's did.
"Hey," she said softly.
"Hey," he replied. "I should have texted first."
"Well... It's two in the morning, Bucky," she said. "I wouldn't have answered."
He realized this the moment she said it, and his blood ran cold. How could he have been so stupid? When he woke from his nightmare and read through Ophelia's journal, finding the letter from D, sending his own in return... It felt like hours had gone by, but really, maybe one had passed at the most. Now he was standing her like an idiot.
Noticing that Lillian was in boxer shorts and a muscle tee with a cartoon depiction of the Hulk, Bucky stammered. "Shit, I am so sorry... I'll..."
"No," she stopped him, "I don't really sleep much."
His storm blue eyes met with her earthen brown ones. In them, he saw the sincerity behind her words. She wasn't saying it to make him feel better, she was being honest with him. And when she stepped aside to let him in, he hesitated. Glancing over his shoulder at his own door, he wondered if he would see Ophelia. He told himself that if he did, he'd turn around, cut and run. But she wasn't there, waiting for him with her semi-transparent perfection.
Ophelia was gone.
Lillian was here.
Stepping in, he could smell Lillian's perfume as she closed the door behind him. A chemical vanilla.
"Can I get you anything to drink? I know I offered wine, but I'm just slightly above drinking at 2AM on a Thursday."
He laughed lightly. "No, I'm alright, thank you."
أنت تقرأ
After She Left
قصص الهواة[The third spin off and fifth book in the "Leave Me Series"] In which James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes is utterly alone in the 21st century. Without Steve. Without Ophelia. This story will be based during the events before and during "The Falcon and th...
