.

He writes to her:

What makes a twelve year old sacrifice herself?

He remembers the lurching feeling in his gut as he was lifted, his father's arm tight around his waist like a clamp. He remembers feeling his vision crawling, struggling to process the sight of her coming to a halt. There was a flash of something behind her eyes. Not fear, certainly. What was it, then?

Umbra takes the notebook back, tail waving gaily as he goes.

A day later, he's walking home from school when the dog drops the book at his feet. He opens it to find a new sticker of a whale with a glittering black back and mottled nose, and some words in gentle, sloping cursive:

The thought that it would help.

Noctis feels a blistering sense of indignation: no one asked you to do that. I didn't ask anyone to sacrifice anything for me.

He writes:

How did you know it would help? You were twelve . What kind of twelve year old does that?

Is it an accusation? A beg to know her, a demand she impart some wisdom to him so that he might make sense of this long separation? Noctis isn't sure, and he feels more and more unsure with every second that passes after the notebook leaves his hand. He tenses his jaw from the anxiety alone, his teeth rubbery-sweet from the soda he'd been drinking.

He was an idiot when he was eight. When he was twelve, he was still an idiot. He still feels like an idiot now at sixteen, and not in possession of a single ounce of the grace she'd apparently been born with.

A day later, she writes:

Had I not stopped, they might have taken Lucis with you. I didn't know then that I'd fall in love with you, but it makes me happier for my choice with each passing day that my actions then may have protected you.

He writes, feeling foolish even as his hand aches from how hard he scrawls:

We might have been together, at least.

It simmers in his gut for two days. Ignis remarks on the way he throws his bag into the back seat, the way he picks at his dinner, the way he says forget it to his homework and buries himself in video games. They could have been together, he and this girl he has loved for a few years now, written to for more, and known for what feels like a lifetime. Instead, he winds himself into his bed, listens to the cicadas outside the apartment complex, and tries not to think about how all-consuming his own memories can feel.

But she writes back, her words flanked by stickers of succulents in charming grey pots:

Instead, you're free.