It was bound to happen sooner or later, Fiona knew. Tears were foreign to her; she allowed herself to cry onstage and nowhere else unless she was absolutely and positively alone. Such outpouring of emotion from another was nearly just as strange, but this… this had been expected, of course, and now that it was happening, she felt frozen, unsure of what to do or how to help. Maybe Linda would not wish to be touched. Maybe she too wanted to be alone with her grief, her pain. It was easiest to pick up the shards of broken glass, and only after doing so did Fiona slowly, tenderly place her hand at the small of the other woman’s back. Her own eyes remained dry, no matter how she ached inside for what Linda was feeling, for the sorrow and tragedy unimaginable by any stretch of the mind.
“Wh—” Her voice felt caught in her throat; she had to swallow hard to get past it. “—What can I do, sweetheart?”
what, indeed. as hard as she tried to come up with an answer, something she needed fiona to do for her, linda could only lean into the other woman’s shoulder and search for her hand. blindly, and confused ( maybe for the first time in her life ), tears abandoning her cheeks to damp the black lace of fiona’s dress. grief was —- unknown to her. having held on to every person she ever cared for, having never lost a single one of the great loves of her life before, linda was unsure of what to do next. of how to react. crying felt like the obvious thing to do, and so did blaming the rest of the world for her family’s misfortune.
one thing she knew for sure: all by herself, alone in this empty house, she would die of a broken heart.
❝ what did we do to deserve this, fiona? ❞ a question she had asked countless times before, countless times before but only to herself. were they not good people? slipping her arms around the woman’s shoulders, linda found her comfort in the crook of fiona’s neck as she hugged her, trusting she wouldn’t let her fall. ❝ it should have been me. ❞