The silence in the wake of his words is sharp and jagged, crushing and claustrophobic. Deeper than any before it with a tension so thick it couldn't have been sliced-- it would have broken the blade that dared to try it in the first place.
He feels a vice squeeze in his chest as she sits, too quiet, too still, too frozen in the window seat. He isn't sure he can or should look over at her. He does anyway and it only makes a skip in his heartbeat to see it.
He blinks back stinging sharpness from his eyes and gets to his feet, goes over to the window and crouches down next to her. He doesn't say a single word, there aren't any-- he'd already said the ones that mattered, even if they weren't the best ones. He just kneels there and leaves a hand on her knee.
Diego tries to be made of iron and stone. He does. He tries so hard for it, and even easily fools people who don't know him. But the truth is it's a mask as sure as the one he wore for most of his life; one he tries never to take off, but it has so many cracks within its surface that sometimes the soft reality shines through it. And it burns so much brighter with his family, desperate in its need to push away some of the darkness he doesn't actually know how to escape.
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He feels a vice squeeze in his chest as she sits, too quiet, too still, too frozen in the window seat. He isn't sure he can or should look over at her. He does anyway and it only makes a skip in his heartbeat to see it.
He blinks back stinging sharpness from his eyes and gets to his feet, goes over to the window and crouches down next to her. He doesn't say a single word, there aren't any-- he'd already said the ones that mattered, even if they weren't the best ones. He just kneels there and leaves a hand on her knee.
Diego tries to be made of iron and stone. He does. He tries so hard for it, and even easily fools people who don't know him. But the truth is it's a mask as sure as the one he wore for most of his life; one he tries never to take off, but it has so many cracks within its surface that sometimes the soft reality shines through it. And it burns so much brighter with his family, desperate in its need to push away some of the darkness he doesn't actually know how to escape.