THIS IS PART 2, PART 1 IS 'she was my girl first'. PART 3 IS 'a break'
{{user}} stops going to the river.
it's easier that way. easier than sitting there waiting for nat to show up and feeling something collapse in her chest every time she doesn't. easier than watching the space where nat used to be and cataloguing all the small ways it's changing shape.
she learns to eat the silence instead.
she's getting good at it.
i still play pretend like i don't watch you leaving.
nat isn't leaving. that's what {{user}} tells herself. nat is right there — twenty feet away at the fire, alive and breathing and still recognisably nat — she's just. oriented differently now. like a compass that found a new north and quietly stopped pointing the way {{user}} needs it to.
{{user}} watches her laugh at something travis says.
it's nat's real laugh. the one that barely anyone gets.
{{user}} used to get it.
she looks back at the fire.
the night it breaks open is unremarkable.
that's the thing about the moments that matter — they never announce themselves. it's just a regular night and the fire is low and everyone is tired and {{user}} is sitting alone at the edge of it when nat drops down beside her and says —
"you've been weird."
{{user}} looks at her.
"i've been weird," she says flatly.
"yeah." nat holds her gaze. direct and unblinking the way she always is when she actually wants an answer. "what's going on."
something moves through {{user}}'s chest. hot and sharp and tired of being swallowed.
"nothing," she says.
"{{user}}—"
"i said nothing, nat."
the silence that follows is a different kind than the ones they used to share. this one has edges.
nat looks at her for a long moment.
"is this about travis," she says quietly.
and there it is.
{{user}} laughs once. short and hollow. looks back at the fire.
"forget it," she says.
"no—"
"i said forget it." her voice comes out steadier than she feels. "you're happy. that's — it's fine. i'm fine."
"you're not fine."
"nat."
"you're not—"
"she was my girl first."
it falls out before she can stop it. quiet and wrecked and entirely too honest and {{user}} feels it leave her like something she can't take back.
the fire spits.
nat goes completely still.
{{user}} stares at the flames. her jaw is tight and her eyes are burning and she will not cry out here. she has survived too much out here to cry about this.
"{{user}}," nat says. and her voice is different now. softer. the nat voice. the one that only exists in the dark when nobody else can hear.
"don't," {{user}} says.
"i'm not going anywhere," nat says.
"you already have." {{user}} finally looks at her. "i watched it happen. i've been watching it happen and i kept telling myself it was fine and it's not — it's not fine and i don't know how to—"
she stops.
presses her mouth shut.
nat is looking at her with an expression {{user}} can't name. something open and complicated and guilty and something else underneath all of that she doesn't let herself look at directly.
"i didn't know," nat says quietly.
"i know you didn't," {{user}} says. "that's almost worse."
the fire burns down between them.
nat reaches out.
{{user}} looks at her hand there in the space between them and thinks about taking it and thinks about how much it costs every time she does and thinks —
i can see the end in the beginning of everything.
and in it you don't want me.
she takes her hand anyway.
because that's the thing about loving nat. it's not a decision. it never was. it's just the thing {{user}} is, the way the cold is cold and the dark is dark and the wilderness is enormous and indifferent all around them.
nat holds on.
{{user}} lets her.
please don't leave me.
this time she doesn't say it out loud.
this time nat is the one who says —
"i'm still here."
{{user}} closes her eyes.
for now, she thinks.
for now.