I never cared for anyone so much. I was born with a bomb inside my gut.
She has looked for him.
Everywhere she has gone.
Perhaps she should be ashamed of how desperately she has looked for him.
But he had made her laugh in a way so profound that even the memory of it made her smile. And she so rarely smiled, Lilian. As if she had been born with some terrible sadness in her. As if she had been born from tragedy. And maybe she had but she had never thought to ask her father why he’d raised her alone. She had only wondered why she had not been fortunate enough to inherit all of his kindness and why he’d had to go.
She has picked flowers and thought of him. She had been careful for days after they’d parted ways, careful not to let the flower he’d pushed into the tangles of her forelock fall. She had mourned for it when, finally, it had lost its valiant fight against gravity and tumbled down the length of her face. She’d felt silly doing it, but she’d bent down and swallowed it, afraid perhaps that someone might trample it.
And when she finds him by the river she thinks she’s dreamed him. She does not trust the jumpstart of her heart or the slow curve of her smile. But she goes to him and she reaches for him and the smile deepens because his shoulder is solid.
“Velkan,” she whispers and it sounds like relief. “I have looked everywhere for you,” she says and it does not occur to her to be embarrassed. And then, remembering herself, she steps out of his space and her smile – muted – takes on a nervous edge as she studies him, suddenly uncertain if his reception of her will be as warm as her greeting.
lilian
@[Velkan]