Aria read the words of his letter with deep heaviness. She did not think of herself as the kind of girl to miss something as serious as the affection he had so clearly spelled out in pen. She had imagined that her fondness for Luke had been deeper than the fondness that he held for her. But that fondness was like the moonlight as opposed to the sunlight. Moonlight was reflected. It was pale by comparison. The love that she felt for Luke was like the light that was reflected from a greater love calling to her from the other side of space and time. Her love for Omkar, on the other hand, was like the sunlight, hissing hot of its own volition, and she was blinded by that light.

Aria was silent for a few seconds before speaking. “Luke, this is a beautiful letter. I had no idea you felt this way. I feel really bad now.”

Luke stood up, still spinning the feather and running his fingers across the blade of it. He already knew the let-down that was coming. He could hear it in what few words she had said. “So that answer’s no, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I like you, Luke, way more than you probably know and more than I’ve told you.”

Luke cut her off: “You like me, but you don’t love me! That’s it, isn’t it?”

She answered him carefully, wary of the thin ice they had wandered onto. “No, it’s that I’ve met someone that I care about so much, I can’t – I just can’t fuck it up. It has nothing to do with you. If you had given me this letter a few months ago, I would have said yes to it.”

Luke looked up at the sky with anger, as if the sky itself had given him the bad advice to wait so long. “I don’t want this to make you hate me. I don’t want to lose you or whatever else might happen,” she said.

He sat back down beside her and forced his way past his own disappointment to comfort her. “Nah, it’s not like that. I could never hate you. I mean, I’m not happy, but it’s not like I’m gonna just go from being in love with you to hating you. I’m way too conscious for that stupid shit.”

Luke didn’t ask her any questions about whatever man she seemed to love so much. He didn’t want to know anything about him because it would only cause him to feel lonelier than he already was.