[private] and I never saw you coming

[Altissima]

For just one moment, Altissima closes her eyes. She’s horrified that she’s crying, horrified that she cannot think of a single appropriate thing to say - horrified of the light tone he uses when he speaks again. Like she might spook - like he knows her well enough to see the tension in her - like she's let herself be known this well because he is, of course, right. And this isn’t a personal crisis, she may close her eyes for a breath but she isn’t alone. Everything she does affects him too. And it’s that thought that has her ever-changing eyes open and focuses on him. Until she realizes she’s still crying and she’ll share a lot with him but this is mortifying. Altissima doesn’t cry and certainly doesn’t do so in front of anyone. Before she can continue being caught up in her head, she moves towards Tarian and maybe he’ll think she is trying to get around but she doesn’t. She steps close to him until their chests are pressed against each other and she is wrapping her neck around him. Maybe he can feel the rapid pace of her heart against his skin, how the tremor is back in her body like a wave that might take out her knees, but it only makes her hold him tighter. Anything to stop him from seeing the tears that blur her vision, until the world is just a hazy combination of their light. Altissima wants to tell him that she is afraid of this thing between them, that this gesture is the kindest and sweetest thing anyone has ever done for her in a dozen years of life, that he is the first of anyone in the entire world that she wants to actually spend time with. She wants to tell him that she loves him and even though she is afraid, even though there may be a part of her that wants to, she isn’t going to run. Even though she has nothing to give him that could ever possibly meet what he has just given her. None of these words come out, though, not a single one makes it through the horrifying lump in her throat - she just presses her cheek into his skin wherever she can and inhales a shaky breath thick with his soothing scent.

image by yoricade

@Tarian