Blast Radius
We love who we love, don’t we? I hope she loved her.
- Tin Man
Bodies under pressure have a nasty habit of going boom. Welcome to the blast radius.
The morning of Aelin’s wedding dawned cool and bright. Elide dragged herself upright at 7 am, eyes full of grit and head drowning in fog. She had – memories, nightmares, flashes of a life so far gone it shouldn’t still be able to dog her footsteps.
Yet here she stood, the wolves at her heels.
Blood. Fire. Gun smoke.
Don’t you ever dare crawl back.
Not today you motherfucker. Elide closed her eyes. Not today.
Breakfast and coffee – she needed to drain the goddamned night away. Grabbing whatever clothes were closest, Elide kicked last night’s dress further under a chair. Which meant she looked good, really excellent, a hundred percent put together, when she crossed paths with Manon and Asterin in the hotel lobby, just back from their morning run.
People should look gross after running. People shouldn’t look like … fucking supermodels. Elide glanced down at her own wrinkled dress. She looked at Manon and Asterin, all expensive yoga pants and strappy sports bras and swinging ponytails. Yep. Alrighty then.
Time for me to go dig a hole to die in. Brb.
“Elide!” Asterin grinned, stopping to bracing her hands on her knees. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Hi El.” Manon said softly, pausing a foot behind her cousin, eyes mapping over the pattern on the tile floor.
“Hey.” Elide responded softly.
Straightening up, Asterin looked between them, eyebrows furrowed. Her mouth fell open and for a moment, it looked like she wanted to say something. Or punch Manon. Clearly deciding that she didn’t have time for their horseshit, Asterin settled for: “Manon we should get going. You smell terrible.”
“Fuck off.” Manon shoved Asterin’s shoulder.
“Have a good morning Elide. See you in a bit.” Asterin said, still watching her far too closely.
Before the elevator doors shut behind them, Elide could have sworn she heard Asterin hiss at Manon, “Elide was at that bar last night? What the fuck were you think-”
Gone. Elide took a deep breath. They were gone and she needed coffee like she needed to breathe. Possibly more, given the caved-in feeling inside her chest. Come on Elide, there’s a possibility that not everything will go wrong today.
You think that, but also, Murphy’s Law is a bitch.
+
When Elide dares to remember, she feels a little bit of shame. Because Aelin had a beautiful wedding, a beautiful ceremony, she really was a beautiful bride. And Elide wasn’t awake for any of it. She stood there at the alter beside her sister, and she smiled, and a gray haze poured under every inch of her skin.
Her eyes sought out Lorcan, her eyes flicked to Manon, her eyes darted away.
Everything was fine. Remember that: everything’s fine.
She’d fought with Lorcan an hour before the ceremony – he didn’t like the bridesmaid dress that Aelin had chosen, said the cut of top was too revealing for a wedding. What are people going to think when my girl shows up looking like that. Elide hadn’t wanted to fight. She didn’t want anyone to know that they were fighting. She wanted – just let this nightmare be over.
Grabbing a gauzy shawl from Lysandra, Elide wore it just to shut Lorcan up and now he was smiling at her, standing with the other groomsmen, handsome and tall in a deep blue suit. Elide smiled back. We’re alright, right?
We’re just fine.
And standing there, staring into Lorcan’s eyes, trying to remember why god gave her lungs, drowning in the gray haze, Elide missed her own sister’s wedding.
+
“Dance with me?” A smooth hand settled on her shoulder, all silver rings and simple, burnished nails. Manon.
“Sure.” Elide stood up and dropped the shawl like an afterthought, a half-forgotten dream. She took a breath. She could do this. When Manon held out a hand, Elide took it. Always.
Pulling Elide in close, Manon spun them into the slow rhythm of the jazz band, palm resting warm and steady against her spine. The other guests at the reception swirled around them as Elide and Manon danced together, soft and steady, to the mournful swing of trombones. “What’s wrong?” Manon asked quietly, her thumb painting circles over Elide’s bare back.
I can’t tell you. I don’t know how to tell myself.
Instead of answering, Elide laid her head on Manon’s shoulder, cheek resting against the soft fabric of Manon’s suit jacket. She murmured, “You know, they sell women’s shirts along with women’s suits.”
“Yes, El, but this was a really expensive bra. How the hell else I am supposed to show it off?”
Elide laughed instead of responding, her breath coming a bit easier. It was, and this is an objective opinion, a good look on Manon. With the jacket buttoning at her navel, Elide could clearly see the lacy black bra curved over Manon’s lightly tanned skin and she knew more than a few people would lose a piece of their sanity tonight.
Personal experience is a bitch.
“Are we good?” Manon nudged her nose into Elide’s hair.
“Yeah. We’re good.”
“We better be. Because I don’t want to lose you.”
“Well you’ve got me Blackbeak.” Elide draped her arms over Manon’s shoulders. Sway with me, sway with me softly. Forever and ever amen.
“Excuse me.” Oh shit. Lorcan. Elide pulled away, already dreading the cold shutters about to drop through Manon’s eyes. “Mind if I dance with my girlfriend.”
Manon didn’t remove her hand from Elide’s back and she stared Lorcan down like a motherfucking predator. “Mind if you ask your girlfriend if she has an opinion on the matter?”
“Babe?” Lorcan held out a hand, looking as impatient as he was pissed. There was a moment, a flicker-flash of time when Elide considered just … staying. Right there. “Elide!”
The lightning passed. And Elide found herself on other side of the storm, standing on this same old ground. She stepped away, taking Lorcan’s hand. I’m sorry, she mouthed at Manon, as if that meant anything. Talk later?
But what sort of later would it be?
When Lorcan kissed her, Elide let him. But only because she didn’t know what else to do.
+
Joining Asterin at the bar, Manon snapped, “This is why I slept with Lexa last night. This. Bull. Shit.”
Turning to face her cousin, Asterin winced and said gently, “You’ve got to let her go, M. You’re going to burn yourself out.”
“I like your use of the future tense. How optimistic.”
Sighing through her nose, Asterin prepared to weather out the bitch of a hurricane sweeping through Manon’s mood. “You want to do shots?”
“I want to forget that this is happening.”
+
“She hesitated, Asterin. She motherfucking hesitated.”
“Then go get her.”
“I can’t. I can’t decide for her.”
+
She’d hesitated. Elide knew it. Lorcan knew it. They both, dancing in this little circle of air slowly crushing them down, knew the truth.
What a beautiful wedding. What a beautiful day. Her sister, laughing beside the man she loved, flowers in her hair. Her surrogate parents, 30 years into marriage and still going strong, swaying together with their hands intertwined. Her best friends in the world, cutting loose like tonight was the last time before everything would never be the same.
Maybe they were right.
“Can we talk?” God, Elide was sick of those words.
Still, she looked Lorcan in the eye and said, “Sure.” Because her mother didn’t raise a coward. And life hadn’t yet beaten her past breaking.
Hugging her arms to her chest, Elide followed Lorcan onto a secluded balcony overlooking tropical gardens and, beyond, the glint of the sea. Welcome to paradise.
“Babe.” Lorcan ran hand over his beard, looking out over this promised land, looking back to her. “You know that I love you, right?”
“Yeah, I know.” Elide took his free hand, squeezing it tight.
“And I know you love me.”
“Yes. Of course.” Elide held Lorcan’s hand tighter, her heart a hundred small hammers beating in frantic time. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Turning to look directly into Elide’s eyes, Lorcan said, “I don’t think you should see Manon anymore.”
“What?” The beat dropped out of Elide’s heart. Please no. “What … what does that even mean?”
Cupping both of Elide’s hands inside his own, Lorcan gently replied, “It means that I don’t think Manon is good for you, or for us. Our relationship. And I don’t want you seeing her anymore.”
“Lorcan … Manon’s just … I know she can be difficult. But she’s – she’s just Manon.”
“But she isn’t just Manon!” Lorcan threw his hands into the air in frustration and Elide flinched at the truth in his words. “If she’s just Manon, why is she dancing with you like you’re her girlfriend? Like you belong to her? Why can’t she keep her hands to her fucking self?”
The unspoken question flared between them, bright and vicious as a signal flare: and why were you dancing with Manon? Like you’re hers?
Stepping closer to Elide, Lorcan took a deep breath and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Babe, I don’t want to do this, but Manon crosses line after line like they don’t even matter. But they do matter. To me.”
What about you, Elide? Where’s the line you draw, where’s your Rubicon?
“Lorcan, I know that you and Manon have never gotten along – ”
“But this isn’t about me, babe. This is about us.”
“Lorcan, she’s my best friend.” Elide could hear herself pleading and she hated herself and she didn’t know how to stop.
She didn’t know how to make it stop.
“Elide.” Lorcan lightly shook her shoulders. “Don’t you see it? Manon isn’t the girl you used to know. She takes from you, she just takes and she takes and now she wants to ruin our relationship, too. I love you, Elide, but I can’t fight for us on my own. I need you to fight. I need you to want it.” Tilting his head until he looked directly in her eyes once more, Lorcan said, “I need to know that you love me.”
Elide didn’t recall the moment she stopped breathing, but she found that before she could speak she had to inhale. She had to try. Just try Elide, isn’t that what Lorcan always said? Just try. “Lorcan, I – I swear, I do, I love you.”
“Then why won’t you act like it?”
“Please, Lorcan – we don’t need to – I’ve known Manon since I was eight.” Pleading and pleading and pleading. Let something make sense. Let anything make sense.
“Elide.” Lorcan came closer, curling his body protectively around her. “I know this isn’t easy. I know you care about her. That’s what makes you so special – how much you care about people, even when they don’t deserve it.
I love you, Elide, I just wish I could explain how much I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have a family with you. I want to grow old with you. But it scares me to see how our relationship is slipping away, and I just … I feel like you’ve stopped trying.
I’d do anything to keep you, but can you honestly say the same? Because the thing that keeps coming between us is Manon.”
Oh god.
Elide felt a tear slip free, then another, and another and another a flood to annihilate the world. Something’s gotta give. My god I think it might be me.
“Lorcan – ” she tried to gather her breath, her panicking heart, “Lorcan …. I can’t …” Another tear, another and another.
He just shook his head. “It’s me or her, Elide. I can’t stay with you as long as Manon’s in the picture.”
Elide surrendered to the heartbreak, these cracks spiraling through her. “Please, I love you, Lorcan, I swear.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t give. You have to choose.
And biting into the agony, Elide looked at Lorcan, looked clean through him. Beyond. To life after life after life – to all the homes she’d thought she had and then lost. She had her parents and they’d died and left her. And she was alone. She had Vernon’s house and then came the dark years and the gun and the flames. And she was alone. She had Manon except for all the long lonely nights when she had nothing at all. And she was alone.
I cannot lose one more home.
I cannot bear it.
And Elide looked again at Lorcan. Her friend, her lover, her partner through so many adventures and bright days and long dark nights. She couldn’t know what her life would look like without him. She was so scared to lose again.
And Elide Lochan nodded. Even as she closed her eyes. Even as a tear slipped free.
Everything’s fine. You remember Elide saying that? Everything’s fine.
“Yes?” Lorcan asked, like he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
Elide nodded again: Yes.
“Yes!” Lorcan whooped, picking her up and spinning her around in a tight hug. “Oh babe, I love you so much.”
Breathing against Lorcan’s shoulder, Elide held on tight and tried to let the scent of his cologne, earthy and warm, ground her down. She tried to inhale. Because there’s just one last thing I have to do, just one thing, before I lose myself in the whiteout.
“Just let me be the one to tell her,” Elide whispered against him. Pulling back a few inches, Lorcan looked down at her warily and opened his mouth to protest, but Elide carried on, saying softly so softly, “Lorcan, I’ll do it. I … I’ll end it, I promise and I’ve never broken a promise to you. I just need to tell her myself.”
Nodding, Lorcan bit his lip and shook his head. “Okay, babe. But if you change your mind or she’s being a bitch, just let me know and I’ll handle her. You never have to worry about Blackbeak again.”
Gently cupping Elide’s jaw, Lorcan stroked a thumb over her cheek and murmured, “God but I love you. How did I get so lucky to wind up with a girl like you? Gorgeous. Funny. Smart. Did I mention gorgeous?”
As Elide blushed, she tried to pretend like her hands weren't shaking and her heart wasn’t desperately fighting to find its way back. And losing. Kissing her other cheek softly, Lorcan said, “You know, this isn’t really how I thought tonight would go. I had a different plan. But now you have me, I have you, and I guess there really is no time like the present. So here goes nothing.” And there on a secluded balcony in the garden of paradise, Lorcan dropped to one knee.
Elide’s heart lost its beat entirely.
“Elide.” He cleared his throat. “Feels a bit redundant to say it, but I love you. I love you and I want to spend my entire life with you. I want to have babies with you. I want to spend every single day at your side. I’ll take care of you, I promise that you’ll never have to worry again. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Plus the sex isn’t half-bad.” He winked at her. “What I’m really trying to say is … Elide Lochan, will you do me the great honor of becoming Mrs. Salvaterre and marrying me?”
Lorcan held up a ring, white-bright diamond surrounded by a halo of rubies. A diamond is merely a reflection of the light passing through it. This ring glowed red. Elide stretched out one hand, her fingers just brushing the stones.
You love me. I love you. This is what people in love do.
And I’m so scared to lose you.
“Yes.” The cracks fracturing down her body split Elide clean in two.