03-17-2020, 08:46 PM
It twists a blade at the very center of her.
‘I don’t feel,’ and it serves only to compound her want to reach for him, to kiss him sweetly. It had not been barbed in pain, as far as she could tell, but perhaps that made it worse. Perhaps that meant he had numbed himself against it. Too young, too naive to realize that there is no pain in it because he’d meant it when he said he didn’t feel. Still, she knows there is a heart beating in that chest. She can practically hear it.
She is perhaps too distracted by the frantic beating of her own heart to identify the reason for all the chaos in her chest. He is moving toward her, closing up all that cold, cold space between them. And he is too close by the time she realizes it. “No,” she whispers but it pulses once on her tongue and dies as soon as it leaves her mouth, falls on deaf ears. And she does not have time to move out of his way. Even if she did, he would almost certainly follow, ensnared by the steady pull of her gravity.
She hears it before she feels it and the pain of it – the sharp twinge in the meat of her heart – almost takes her to her knees. How fiercely she wants to hurl herself out of his reach. Because she has seen the way it hurts. She has watched innocent things burn to death. She knows the specific brand of agony that goes along with it. She cannot stop the eyes welling up with hot, hot tears.
But he does not draw away and there is some enormous comfort in the way he touches her. Steady. How desperately she has longed to touch, to be touched, and he does not yelp or recoil. She turns her head to look at him, her brow furrowed with confusion.
And finally, he draws away. But it is not abrupt. He does not swear or spit. He does not curse her for what she is, all of these things she does not know how not to be.
He speaks and she lifts that gaze – the eyes still all full of tears – to meet his. Steady. And that same heart, which had beat frantic in her chest, swells. He reaches for her again and she skirts away from him. Not because she does not want to be touched by him – how sweet it had been! - but because she cannot bear the thought of hurting him.
“Pentecost,” she says, mournful, her head tilted, a vise tightened around her throat, “don’t let me hurt you.” She shakes her head and exhales a shaky sigh. “Please, don’t let me hurt you.” The first of her tears fall, slick, down her cheeks.
‘I don’t feel,’ and it serves only to compound her want to reach for him, to kiss him sweetly. It had not been barbed in pain, as far as she could tell, but perhaps that made it worse. Perhaps that meant he had numbed himself against it. Too young, too naive to realize that there is no pain in it because he’d meant it when he said he didn’t feel. Still, she knows there is a heart beating in that chest. She can practically hear it.
She is perhaps too distracted by the frantic beating of her own heart to identify the reason for all the chaos in her chest. He is moving toward her, closing up all that cold, cold space between them. And he is too close by the time she realizes it. “No,” she whispers but it pulses once on her tongue and dies as soon as it leaves her mouth, falls on deaf ears. And she does not have time to move out of his way. Even if she did, he would almost certainly follow, ensnared by the steady pull of her gravity.
She hears it before she feels it and the pain of it – the sharp twinge in the meat of her heart – almost takes her to her knees. How fiercely she wants to hurl herself out of his reach. Because she has seen the way it hurts. She has watched innocent things burn to death. She knows the specific brand of agony that goes along with it. She cannot stop the eyes welling up with hot, hot tears.
But he does not draw away and there is some enormous comfort in the way he touches her. Steady. How desperately she has longed to touch, to be touched, and he does not yelp or recoil. She turns her head to look at him, her brow furrowed with confusion.
And finally, he draws away. But it is not abrupt. He does not swear or spit. He does not curse her for what she is, all of these things she does not know how not to be.
He speaks and she lifts that gaze – the eyes still all full of tears – to meet his. Steady. And that same heart, which had beat frantic in her chest, swells. He reaches for her again and she skirts away from him. Not because she does not want to be touched by him – how sweet it had been! - but because she cannot bear the thought of hurting him.
“Pentecost,” she says, mournful, her head tilted, a vise tightened around her throat, “don’t let me hurt you.” She shakes her head and exhales a shaky sigh. “Please, don’t let me hurt you.” The first of her tears fall, slick, down her cheeks.
leonora