Death and all her friends

The stone steps burn hot and angry against my calf. I shift to get more comfortable. You shift uncomfortably.
“So we’re cool, right?” I ask, tugging at a stray thread on my t-shirt.
“Yeah”, you say, twisting your fingers into imaginary guitar riffs, “We’re friends.”
I watch you and how you make sure to not touch me. Not even by accident.
The thread begins to unravel.
The stream of difference between us has widened into a chasm of indifference. But your mask is slipping. You could never tie your shoelaces, how did you expect to keep your façade from falling?
A bell rings. People weave their way down the old stone steps, steps that have stories etched into their cracks. Steps that go up, steps that go down and steps that have you sitting in the middle when you have nowhere left.
No where. Now here.
I lean back on my hands to protect myself from being pushed into you. When I turn to look you’ve got your toe wedged between the banisters. Your defense is fool proof. Mine isn’t. Someone steps on my fingers and I wince.

“What happened?” your guitar is dismantled mid air as you reach out to me. I draw away unsure about why it should still matter. My eyes fold away their frosted shield and you realize that the hurt flickering there is you. You face your own fingers, courage dead to you and pluck clutched in the hidden corners of your hand. We breathe in space, the Beauty and the Beast, counting colours in our head.

“I will always love you as a person”, you say, answering the questions burning through my skin, questions you recognize as your own as skin kisses skin. 

Your fingers curl hesitantly through mine and the friction is almost tangible. Your shoelaces lie enticingly, intertwined but not tied.
“I know”, I say as I pull away gently, “I always have.”

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Have you ever gift wrapped the truth with a lie?
I just did.