HEARTS SO LOST AS MINE (a short preview from the fic I’m currently working on)

The rush of leafs from outside as she opens the door mingles with the clicking of her heels. When he looks up, orange autumn dusk illuminates the garage, and he knows what has happened before she says it out loud, with an unsure and trembling voice.

The air is chilly, and Sybil wraps her gloved arms around herself, eyeing the floor shyly.

“He proposed.”

He drops the greasy cloth onto the hood of the Renault, taking a few deliberate steps forward, but keeping much more of a distance between them than usual. No more approaching. No more crumbling of the divide that keeps them apart. He is crouched behind it now, like a brick wall that stares him blankly in the face.

“And why are you telling me that?”

She looks up, aware of the anger and despair in his eyes no matter how hard he tries to conceal them. Dignity, that is what comes into his mind first, before everything else. Years he has waited, and if she refuses him now, all he has left is to accept it with dignity.

“Because I think you deserve to know.”

“Have you given him an answer, then?”