He had stocked his mind with feelings where thoughts used to be. Feelings of disrepute; of insanity; of calamity and disaster. That is what writers do, of course, but she was still looking at him and he knew he had to say something. The cadence of their dialogue, perfect or otherwise, had silenced moments ago and a new sound - the sound of vacuous trepidation - had solidified around them, encasing them in that too-common atmosphere known by the youth of today as 'awkwardness'. Her stare was invasive, but he could forgive that. She was allowed to invade his mind because she was the one who created it - created, naturally, using leaves and stems and bits of broken bark.
Breaking the traditions that his relationship had taught him, he spoke first.
"We can never grow if we don't leave, Lucy. We'll just stand here, stagnant, waiting for the world to come to us. Your choices - your desires have made us this way; stuck with nowhere to go. The world waits for no-one, Lucy, and no-one waits for us. Haven't you seen how our friends surpass us? Haven't you seen how they move on to better things and we just stay here - stuck - just fucking stuck, going nowhere but down. I know that you struggle with change; I know that you're happy living the easy life, but there is so much more out there. We only get one chance at this - if we don't go now, we'll never go and we don't have an excuse anymore."
"Can I talk now?" came the interception.
"We don't have an excuse because we're stifling ourselves. We are giving up on living just to survive a little longer."
"Can I talk now?" the voice came again, with authority this time.
"These are decisions that we should make together; I refuse to remain content while you dictate my chances. I don't think I can do this anymore."
Assuming that meant no, she stood and took up her suitcase in her hand. In her other hand, he was astonished to see she carried a train ticket to the capital, where a new phase of her new life could begin.
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