[private] followed by the ghost of what you can't absolve

[elio]

elio

The stranger is like him -- filled to the brim with an unspoken sadness. Maybe they'll drown together, in the rush of the river, clinging to the only certainty they've ever known: disappointment.

Elio's heart breaks for the race of the river, the glow of the moonlight, the rustling of the trees. It breaks and beats and bleeds as powerfully as the nature around him. If only he were weak enough to sway, to bend to the earth's will, to fall to his knees and succumb to the weakness his father gave him.

A weakness he was birthed into. Crippled by a father he wanted so badly that it aged him. Disjointed now, walking on underdeveloped limbs and brittle bones.

A monster, perhaps. Thinly veiled by loose, underfed skin.

The stranger mutters her small greeting and Lio lifts his sparking, vibrating eyes. "Hello," is all he says at first, casting the keen gaze of an anxious being over her pale frame. Not a threat, he thinks, but that stark white reminds him of the glimmer of Celina's stripes. Like prey smart enough to disguise themselves as predator, Anonya makes Elio twitch with a jolt of unease.

But she is beautiful: beneath the silver beam of the moon she looks like a star that just finished rolling in a field of wildflowers, and Lio cannot resist such an image. He steps closer, closing the distance so that they might comfortably hear themselves over the water.

"I'm hiding from something," he blurts, tucking his chin to his chest. "Are you?"

i don't think i could stand to be
where you don't see me