Northern_Lights_2014

cate them on his guitar. He could play her a different melody for every hour. But nothing lasts forever; as the seasons changed, so did Harper. He no longer appeared by her side every day, and when he did, their encounters were brief, curt, and void of substance. He no longer brought his guitar. The darkness had gotten darker again. “Things are hard right now,” came his reply at last. His voice sounded detached and remote. “Just . . . stressful, y’know? We graduate soon.” That’s it. No comfort in his voice; no sympathy towards the wretched state of her emotions. Panic laid siege on her body, crumbling the resolve she’d built, brick by brick, to speak openly with Harper about her private ruminations. Maybe she’d been wrong to call him out here. Maybe he really was just caught up in the whirlwind of pre-college preparations. Maybe she was being too clingy; maybe she was nothing more to him than what her blindness was to her: a burden. She couldn’t tell if the erratic squeals that invaded her eardrums came from the wind or the instability of her own mind, rising and falling to match each uneven intake of breath. Still, every fraught nerve in her body fought against her instinct to mute her voice the way she was used to. Say something say something say something! Her mind commanded her. Nothing will ever change if you do nothing! But “It sure is surreal, isn’t it? It almost felt like this time would never come” is all she could come up with. A shallow, empty, premeditated and expected response. “It’s okay to be scared. Everyone is.” Remorse surged through her like a drum. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t detach herself from her fear; instead she kept her feelings locked, silenced, and buried behind a wall of stubbornness to say what was on her mind. Harper always used to fill the gaps in her words when she couldn’t. She’d never been very good at keeping her emotions in check. She could hide them, keep them stuffed under an airtight lid, but they never left. Since she’d met Harper, he’d become her crutch, her rock to keep steady; she had almost forgotten how to wade through her feelings on her own. “I’m glad you understand, Luce.” She could hear him shuffling his legs together in agitation. She imagined the warm, rich notes he had described to her before turning to ice. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about too.” She stiffened. “We’ll both be going our own separate paths soon, right? It’s gonna be a big change. So maybe . . . maybe it’s time for us to change, too. Go our own ways, start over. A fresh start is something you’ve always wanted, Luce, right? It’s nothing personal.” Nothing personal, she wanted to spit, would you be saying that if I wasn’t the poor, incompetent blind 12