[private] you feel so lost, adaline

[adaline]

I'm wasted, losing time; I'm a foolish, fragile spine
I want all that is not mine; I want him but we're not right

Is this what love is supposed to feel like?

His touch is unexpected and she flinches at first because she expects violence—she expects disgust. Instead he is gentle and there is a soft noise in the back of her throat when she recognizes it. Her heart pounds in her chest at the feel of him wrapped around her, the touch of lips to her cheek, his mouth gently caressing her shoulder and the glass trapped beneath the paper thin skin that remains stretched taut atop it.

The name doesn’t feel strange anymore. It feels liker her own. It feels like a second chance and all she wants to do is sink into it; she wants to pull on this identity and give it roots. She is not Adaline, the broken, greedy girl with a heart that hungered for the stars and broke apart on the valley floor instead.

No, she is Charity, and she is loved. She is wanted. She is held.

She doesn’t know how to reply to the words that he gives her—these beautiful and precious words that feel like a gift—and so she just cries softly. She leans into the touch and presses her forehead into his neck and breathes him in. Breathes him in and tells herself that he is hers, that she is his.

When he mentions their daughter, it takes everything in her to not collapse with relief. “Dusk,” she says the name again and feels a warmth blossom in her chest. She had a daughter named Dusk who had looked like this stallion of flesh and bone. Her daughter had lived a wonderful life. She had been normal.

“I’ve waited lifetimes for you,” she says because it feels true. She grows brave and reaches out to press her delicate lips into the crook of his neck, against the sturdy feeling of his jaw. It feels like trespassing and she has to remind herself that she belongs here—that she belongs curled into his side, in this moment.

She breathes out and feels the exhale curl against him and then back onto her.

“Jarris,” she closes her petal pink eyes. “My Jarris.”

in the darkness, I will meet my creators
and they will all agree that I'm a suffocator

Adaline

@[jarris]