The Desert's Edge ➣ Gloss/OC

That might make this love easier to hold

Chapter Sixty one | That might make this love easier to hold

"O blessed, blessed night! I am afeard,

Being in night, all this is but a dream,

Too flattering-sweet to be substantial."

2.2, 139-141 Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare

The desert is like another world tonight. Outside of the city limits, with the neon lights behind him and the universe ahead, Gloss can see so far into the heavens that his head spins at the sheer enormity of it all. It's breathtaking in a humbling way, to realize just how miniscule his life actually is when he compares it to the vastness of space.

There are a hundred thousand stars flickering down at him; tiny pinpricks of light that shoot through the sky like a star bound blanket. Not a single cloud veils the sight. Nothing is hidden from him. It's poetic almost, because so much of his life is.

Maybe he's being overly sentimental, but it's hard not to be when the universe itself is in his backyard. His freedom is up there among the stars. A life without manipulation and blackmail; without President Snow breathing down his neck and ensuring that he is always the perfect District 1 Victor who can do no wrong. His deliverance from this life of darkness and sin dances just beyond his grasp.

In a moment of wistfulness, Gloss reaches his hand up, closing his fingers around a star as if he means to pluck it from the sky. He comes up short though, as always. It is too far away, and like everything in his life, it slips from his grasp. He wonders if that will ever change – if everything will always slip past him like smoke between his fingers, ever fated to flicker out just when he thinks he's found something worthwhile. He really hopes that isn't the case in every aspect of his life, because he's found something extremely worthwhile these past few years. Something that he thinks he might need in order to survive.

Is it a starry sky in District 5, or cloudy and foggy like Elara always says it is whenever he finds an excuse to call her? These days, these sorts of thoughts have been constant. He finds himself thinking of her in the least opportune moments. She is always in his head. If he isn't swept up in some beautiful memory of their recent time together in the Capitol, then he's wondering what she's doing far away in her home.

It's a unique brand of torture, because it's also so incredibly invigorating to have someone to think about at all. He's never been this swept up in a woman before. He's never allowed himself to be.

Falling in love with Elara Winston had not been a conscious decision on his part, but then again he doubts it ever is. People don't decide to love someone. It isn't a choice that's made after weighing pros and cons. Love is a creature that can't be explained. It's a lightning bolt; a crashing tempest. It's being guided down a path that you hadn't known existed until now, because it had been shrouded from your sight.

And then, suddenly, it isn't hidden anymore, and it hasn't been for a while only you hadn't known it, and you're already halfway down it before you realize that it is a one-way road and there's no going back. You can't just turn around. You're already too far onto it, and when you glance over your shoulder you can no longer see the path behind you. The version of yourself before you started walking it no longer exists. You have become changed, and the only direction that's left open to you is forward.

He thinks that he'd been on this path for a long time, but his resistance to love's tempestuous embrace had been so strong that he hadn't seen the signs of its presence. He hadn't seen them until he'd looked into Elara's eyes one night and realized just how gorgeous they are, and how much he adores the way she smiles that wry smile when she's in a playful mood, and how easily he falls into her when they're making love. He hadn't realized that was what they were making, until it was too late. When he'd looked back down that path, he'd known that he couldn't turn around. He had already taken one step too far; already let himself be swayed by her. A willing, eager participant in a love too boundless to comprehend.