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Lionel could sense her drifting from him.
They walk through the forest wordlessly. Adelina plucks a fig off of a nearby tree, nibbles at it with her pretty mouth. Her gloved hand holds another out to him, like an offering of delicious and increasingly rare affection. He wonders how this could be her peace offering when there are much sweeter things to be had.
The corner of her mouth is smeared with its flesh and he wipes it off, making an attempt that seems so suave to kiss her. She laughs a low, mirthless laugh, and the corners of her lips turn up, her eyebrows come just a touch together into that grin he knows so well as she nudges him away. The usual playfulness is absent; There is something colder instead.
The fruit tastes as sweet as poison on his tongue. An omen, he fears.
It is agonizingly hot, the air thick and salty and damn near impossible to breathe. She licks remnants of fig and drops of sweat from her upper lip and he feels as if he may faint, as if it will kill him to look at her any longer and know. Know that he is losing her.
He wonders if she is silent because they fought again before this. About what, he cannot precisely recall and more importantly cannot bring himself to. About birthdays and flowers and about never being there. He wonders if they will fight later because he cannot remember why.
It is an ugly thing, the two of them, overgrown and unruly. But, oh, Adelina. She is a magnificent creature, fair and feisty and foul-mouthed, graceful as summer’s swan as she begins to walk across the rocks without a second thought.
He can see in her eyes that she is elsewhere, distracted. Moved by some other, gentler wind. The glitter of infatuation and the sheen of lust is gone. All that remains is something he does not recognize.
“Are you going to be this way the rest of the way, then?”
“What way am I being?” The way she glares at him, he knows. He knows it instantly and all too well. There is thunder in those green eyes, a storm brewing. Adelina is a force of nature. It just might destroy him.
“Are you really going to act like you don’t know? You’re better than that.”
“ Am I, Lionel? What am I better than?”
“Are you going to cry again?”
“How can I cry when I cannot feel anything anymore?”
“Do you realize how embarrassing this is, Adelina? How humiliating it is when a man of my standing-”
“ENOUGH! You really do not care about anything but your reputation, do you? I cannot do this anymore, Lionel, I am bleeding and bleeding in front of you and you’re fucking standing there with that look on your face! I feel things, Lionel, I am a person , I am not some legend for you to chase or some prize for you to win.” Adelina’s voice is fierce like a wounded animal, like she is so tired and yet still fighting.
This is his last chance. This is the lucidity that comes just before death. Though he cannot yet see the fire, he smells the smoke.
“What are you saying, then?”
She is so far from his grasp, and Lionel realizes that she always has been.
Was she ever really his?
Adelina takes a deep, shuddering breath and steels herself as if she’s going to say something. She breaks, standing there in front of him. Aching. Trying to put broken things back together. Bleeding.
The two of them stand there like graves. They are so far apart, as if they are strangers. As if they have not shared secrets and beds and hearts.
“I believe I’ll love you forever, Adelina. I can’t lose this. I can’t lose us.”
Her back is turned to him but he can tell that she is thinking. He can see the word “us” hit her like a bullet.
“….Forever is a long, long time, Lionel.”
And Lionel stands there feeling like Romeo in Juliet’s tomb, wondering if it is worth it to see if she has a pulse or if he should drink the poison.