“Stay with me”, she said.
He looked away, but she knew he was biting his lip, the way he did whenever he was nervous. “Stay with me”, she repeated.

It was the only thing she could say. She knew that if he left now, it would all be over. He would never come back, and she didn’t think she could live with that anymore.

For he had stolen her precious heart as she watched, and wrapped it in satin and love, and then asked her to give it to him. How could she have refused? He had gently curled his roots around her and tangled his fingers in her hair, binding them together. He had planted flowers between her ribs. He had held her hand as she spilt all her secrets and regrets to him, and made her his joy, his hope, his sun. As he was hers.

But now those roots were snapping, and the flowers were wilting, and he was falling out of love. And she was falling too, but now he was the sun and she was Icarus, broken and falling fast, definitely, but still struggling. And it wasn’t the sun that was killing her, no, it was the ocean and boiling wax running down her back. She should have spread her wings and tried to stay afloat, to live, but no, she didn’t want to live, all she wanted to do was to rise again and touch the sun. And as she dropped, she made one last, desperate attempt to rise, focus wholly on the sun, tears let loose over her face.

“Stay with me”, she said.