to love a liar

lie with my bones

🧪TW: mention of death, suicidal thoughts

🧪Here's a longish chapter 😙
🧪there's a shatter me reference in there too🙄

Suddenly, Eren tapped you, "Hey, we're here."

You blinked like you had just woken from a deep slumber. He noticed you flinch when he touched you and cautiously asked, "Hey, you okay? I thought maybe the beach would make us feel better."

Perhaps your mind was playing tricks on you because you were almost certain you were close to your dorm. Nevertheless, you nodded, "Mhm."

Not saying much else, you got out of the car. He circled towards you and noticed you shivering. He grabbed his sweatshirt, "Here, it's cold."

He began to bunch up the material as to put it on you himself, but he raised his brows when you simply made a grab for it.

"Thanks," you mumbled, pulling it over your head and slipping your arms into the hoodie.

The two of you walked onto the sand, you were several paces ahead and your head was down. Eren eyed the golden sand, reflecting specks of crystal-like white from the moonlight.

The sand was a nuisance, it slowed his pace and sometimes it felt like no matter how hard he tried to speed up, the texture of the sand would slow him down. Certain steps felt stagnant, and others felt as if he would slip through the ground, into the very cracks of the earth. Life was a lot like that, he thought.

When you stopped in your tracks, he sat down. Wordlessly, you plopped down too.

The wind, this time of year, always blossomed into a vindictive turbulence. The beaches always abided alone during the tentative season of autumn blooming into winter. The crisp evening air pricked your nose, the shells of your ears begun feeling rigid as well.

You gaped at the moonlight hitting the sea, ribbons of silver coiled and uncoiled like serpents glistening in the water. It sparkled ever so majestically, and your eyes flicked between the tides and the moon.

"The moon looks perfect," you murmured after a long silence.

You were right. It was perfect. A crescent, all pale and white in its glory. It looked distant tonight compared to most nights. Much smaller and further away.

Eren looked at it with a tender smile. It felt a little amusing to stare at it when the person he believed was the moon reincarnated sat right beside him, staring at the stars like they were her companions. Like she wished to dance among them.

"She always does," he mumbled, his eyes peeking from the corners at you.

Not having heard what he said, you asked, "Hm?"

He shook his head, "Nah, nothing."

You continued to observe the moon, how it was turned away from the sun and hiding itself. You felt for it. The moon understood what it meant to be human. To be cratered with flaws. To feel half or whole. To hide away or reveal itself according to mood. To be left alone in the dark, begging to be seen.

The two of you sat in silence for a while longer before you said, "Do you think the moon wants to ever go to the other galaxies?"

Eren cocked a brow, "Huh? I think the moon is sick of chasing the sun, so it stays right where it is waiting for something to come to it."

Not responding right away, you closed your eyes, "Nothing ever will though. Do you think it knows what it feels like to be loved?"

"It might not know it's loved," Eren said, his voice barely above a whisper, "but it is."