Dune felt the arguments piling up inside her. No, devastating is losing your mom in an instant. Devastating is burning your mother in the yard. Devastating is becoming an orphan before turning twenty-five. Devastating might even be finding out the person you love is a liar. But, then, Dune also knew devastating is watching your hometown go ghost.

“I’m not leaving. But you should. We don’t know what this is. Or how it works. You should go.”

“So you at least care whether I live or die.” Marta turned away again. Dune knew all of these moves by heart. Marta spoke quietly, “I can’t believe you fell out of love with me. I can feel it. I can see it in the way you look at me… Oh god it really hurts.”

The quiet grew. Dune could feel the unspoken words she was supposed to say in this moment sliding up between them, a glass partition. It hurt her too. But she didn’t want this anymore. There were so many small reasons under the big one.

“My mom just died Mar.” Dune felt the pressure move from her chest up into her throat with this fourth articulation of her impossible new reality. It took such effort to speak. “I didn’t fall out of love with you. You broke the part of me that was able to love you. And now I see you as you are—you’re not a bad person, Mar. But you’re not an honest person, either. Something like this doesn’t just happen—”

“But—” Marta was turning again. Dune kept hearing the word goodbye in her head.

“It doesn’t, babe. But even if you hadn’t cheated, I don’t have shit to give you right now. There’s nothing.” Dune gestured loosely at her chest, the landscape that had once been so green for Marta. She felt a dry husk inside her. As she said it, she felt the truth of it, the absence of any real feeling.

She wanted to make sure Mama Vivian was ok, give her some water.

She wanted to take care of her parents’ home.

She wanted to go back inside and crawl in bed with her mother’s bones.

They were quiet for a while. Dune turned to face the street. Some impulse made her slip an arm around Marta, generous with the end in sight. Marta quickly leaned onto Dune’s shoulder. They sat that way for a quiet length, too hot, Marta emoting some more in little hitches, pooling a Rorschach onto Dune’s shirt.

After a while Marta sat up, flicking tears from her face like she did ash from her cigarette. She smoothed her hair back and stood up, facing Dune, stamping out her smoke. She looked empty, deflated, clear.