[ Sarah isn't going to be forgetting that night any time soon.
She won't be forgetting at all. Time has an inexplicable way of making things seem farther away and closer than ever before, both at the same time. Sarah wakes up every day, and she feels both closer and farther to that night than she ever did when it actually happened. It can feel like it happened just yesterday on some days and it can feel like it happened years ago on others.
It's still not something she is ever going to forget.
A big part of her unwillingness to bend to rules anymore, a big part of her ability to finally stand up to her father comes with knowing what they do, and the life that they took.
She vowed Elizabeth's death would not be in vain, and as long as she's alive, she is going to do everything within her power so that that remains true. ]
Wonderful! We can both be equally clueless together. [ The smile widens a little, before it softens back into a more serious expression, and she looks back down at their hands while they rest over his heart. There's the faint drumming of his heartbeat, a murmur against her palm, one more piece of evidence he is very much alive. It's the only guarantee that there's ever been, and ever will be.
There's the here and the now.
Yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come, and in Chicago, you either learn to live your life that way or prepare yourself for the day it comes true. And it'll come true again and again and again. There won't come a day she won't invite death in. There won't come a day the reminder of loss doesn't smack her in the face.
But if she doesn't learn to live with it, she'll make herself lose what she does have, for what little time she can have it, because self-sabotage is something she excels in without knowing it. Then she would end up alone, and it'd be all her fault.
And maybe that's worse. ] I... know. I was mostly teasing. I know none of it is really going to help right now. [ She presses her lips together, glancing back out the window for a moment. There is something about being in this room that is both a sanctuary and terrible, and she has grown so accustomed to it, doesn't balk at dichotomy, having struggled with enough contradicting emotions to learn to grapple with them.
It's the one thing she really did like about this house. The view from her window. Do the rooms in the Towers even have windows? She hasn't checked, and even if they did, they wouldn't--it wouldn't look like this, and that's the most pointless thing to linger on but she does, she likes this view, she likes how the sky looks from her window.
What was her window. It was all once hers and now none of it is hers.
Nothing is really hers, and there's that adrift feeling she has to shove past again. ]
I wouldn't advise you to, no. Rest assured, Mr. Gilbert, I'll give you private lessons.
[ Sarah smiles back, knowing full well what he was trying to sound like, but she wouldn't have wanted him to be in those circles. They tend to be filled with snobby people focused on vanities. She doesn't want to generalize, is aware not everyone was like that, but it felt like a great deal of them were, and it was all so hollow and superficial, she couldn't stand it.
She would take being a homeless orphan over living the high society life Sherri and Brooke do any. Day. Of the week.
I'm your best friend so I know best.
There's laughter bubbling up her throat, quiet but earnest. ]
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She won't be forgetting at all. Time has an inexplicable way of making things seem farther away and closer than ever before, both at the same time. Sarah wakes up every day, and she feels both closer and farther to that night than she ever did when it actually happened. It can feel like it happened just yesterday on some days and it can feel like it happened years ago on others.
It's still not something she is ever going to forget.
A big part of her unwillingness to bend to rules anymore, a big part of her ability to finally stand up to her father comes with knowing what they do, and the life that they took.
She vowed Elizabeth's death would not be in vain, and as long as she's alive, she is going to do everything within her power so that that remains true. ]
Wonderful! We can both be equally clueless together. [ The smile widens a little, before it softens back into a more serious expression, and she looks back down at their hands while they rest over his heart. There's the faint drumming of his heartbeat, a murmur against her palm, one more piece of evidence he is very much alive. It's the only guarantee that there's ever been, and ever will be.
There's the here and the now.
Yesterday is gone and tomorrow may never come, and in Chicago, you either learn to live your life that way or prepare yourself for the day it comes true. And it'll come true again and again and again. There won't come a day she won't invite death in. There won't come a day the reminder of loss doesn't smack her in the face.
But if she doesn't learn to live with it, she'll make herself lose what she does have, for what little time she can have it, because self-sabotage is something she excels in without knowing it. Then she would end up alone, and it'd be all her fault.
And maybe that's worse. ] I... know. I was mostly teasing. I know none of it is really going to help right now. [ She presses her lips together, glancing back out the window for a moment. There is something about being in this room that is both a sanctuary and terrible, and she has grown so accustomed to it, doesn't balk at dichotomy, having struggled with enough contradicting emotions to learn to grapple with them.
It's the one thing she really did like about this house. The view from her window. Do the rooms in the Towers even have windows? She hasn't checked, and even if they did, they wouldn't--it wouldn't look like this, and that's the most pointless thing to linger on but she does, she likes this view, she likes how the sky looks from her window.
What was her window. It was all once hers and now none of it is hers.
Nothing is really hers, and there's that adrift feeling she has to shove past again. ]
I wouldn't advise you to, no. Rest assured, Mr. Gilbert, I'll give you private lessons.
[ Sarah smiles back, knowing full well what he was trying to sound like, but she wouldn't have wanted him to be in those circles. They tend to be filled with snobby people focused on vanities. She doesn't want to generalize, is aware not everyone was like that, but it felt like a great deal of them were, and it was all so hollow and superficial, she couldn't stand it.
She would take being a homeless orphan over living the high society life Sherri and Brooke do any. Day. Of the week.
I'm your best friend so I know best.
There's laughter bubbling up her throat, quiet but earnest. ]
Okay. I won't argue. Not about this matter.