lovewave .| arcobel

[я𝑜𝓈𝑒]

I S O B E L ✩ K R I G E L

"THAT NIGHT WE WALKED TOGETHER WE FELL INTO PACE AND HAD A LONG CONVERSATION. THAT NIGHT WE WERE TWO, LITTLE BY LITTLE."

Beneath the blackened night sky, the ocean is a great pool of ink. Silver and white light from the moon and stars flicker across the tide and refract in the dark water. There is barely any sound tonight, save for the warm wind tinged with sea salt whispering in Isobel's hair and the soft lapping of the gentle waves against her boat; it seems that the world has been submerged in silence.

It was nights like these when she and Brooke would venture out from the shore and into the sea; she flips fondly through memories of she and Brooke laying on the floor of her boat as she taught her all of the constellations she knew and exchanged stories about how each of them came to be.

("That one up there with the raised arm and the bow is Orion. He looks like a headless archer with a skirt, doesn't he?"

"Yeah, he does," Iso giggled.

"He was a hunter. And the stories say he was arrogant and selfish, and . . .")

But the memory fades away, reminding Isobel once more that she is forever without her storyteller and swimming partner. For just one moment, remembering her made her feel less empty, like she was whole again. But the sentiment was only fleeting, a tiny spark that quickly burns out. She knew that she shouldn't try to fool herself — it seemed that the universe would never allow Isobel Krigel to be whole. First her mother, and now Brooke; the death toll is beginning to stack up too high.

Isobel stands at the edge of her boat with a white cover-up hanging off of her lean frame. Her gaze sweeps across the horizon — completely empty except for one other boat in the distance, a fisherman, perhaps. It isn't odd for fisherman to be out this late; many of them say that there are more fish biting at night.

She removes her cover-up, letting it crumple to the ground below her, revealing only a blue bikini to cover her body, and throws her legs over the side of the boat. Isobel dips into the cool ocean water until she is completely under save for her head, and then readjusts her position so that she is floating on her back in the water.

She lets the water soak into her hair, expanding it into a cloud around her head and she sprawls out around the surface, water ripping around her movements. The stars are reflected on the water so that it appears she is floating in the night sky.

If Brooke were here —

No, she tells herself, because Brooke is not here, Brooke will never be here with her. Don't dwell on the impossible.

So instead she just closes her eyes and tries to focus in on the cool water against her back, the summer air brushing against her face, the silence of the calm ocean around her. Deep down she knows that her peace is only temporary, that eventually her mind will wander back to places she does not want to go.

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