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LE MOT JUSTE
three hours and thirty minutes
"ARE YOU EVER going to tell me your brother's name?" she asked as she looked curiously over at him.
"Does it matter what his name is?" Regulus asked.
"Well he matters to you, so he matters to me," she said timidly.
"Oh," Regulus whispered. "Right."
"So are you going to tell me his name?" she asked.
"I can't," he replied in a strained voice. "It- I haven't said it in years, if I'm being honest."
"And why's that?" she asked. "You never told me what happened to him. He just dropped out of the story."
Regulus looked at her with guarded eyes. She was getting through the last barrier. The last wall to strike a hammer against and watch as it crumbled, gloriously.
As the boy before her falls like the heroes and villains before. That's the funny thing about life, no matter who you are, you all meet the same fate. Except some don't want to leave and some are at peace.
That's all he'd ever wanted. Peace. Something that allowed him to just let go and feel the sweet release of no expectation. Of not being Regulus Black. Of being the boy who liked to hear Clair de Lune on the piano late at night. And hummed it to himself absent-mindedly before he remembered.
"He left," Regulus eventually said. "And he offered to take me with him, but I knew we were on different paths."
"Why did he go?" she asked quietly.
"He didn't like it with my mum and dad," Regulus explained. "And they were horrible to him. Now that I think about it, he deserved better than us."
"But did he like it with you?" she asked.
"I don't know," Regulus answered truthfully. "I never asked him. And he never told me."
"Maybe he never found the right words?" she suggested.
"No," Regulus countered. "He always knew what to say."
"Perhaps that's why," she replied. "If you care enough about someone and you always know what to say, then how could you find the words if you've used all of them up frivolously?"
