I never cared for anyone so much. I was born with a bomb inside my gut.
She is absolutely certain no one has ever been happy to see her.
At least, not in many years.
But his face lights up in a way that puts a song in her heart and she has no choice but to smile, too.
She casts herself out of his gravity but she does not get far before he’s following, draping his neck across hers in a kind of hug that she’s never been on the receiving end of. She closes her eyes and feels at peace for the first time in so long that it almost takes her to her knees. The smile softens but remains all the same as she lays her weary head to rest against the plain of his shoulder.
His apology elicits a breath of laughter. It is muted, unsure. She frowns and shakes her head as they separate. “It’s okay,” she murmurs and she tries to sound reassuring but it comes out slanted. She does not try to wedge more space between them. She does not scurry out of the reach of his warmth. She is content to stand so close to him that her breath shudders across the surface of his skin.
Is everything okay? It is a simple question, certainly. The short answer is yes, but she knows that it’s more complicated than that. So, her smile deepens when she lifts her head to look him in the eye. She feels none of her earlier embarrassment when she shakes her head and says, “I just missed you.”
She reaches out to bump his neck then, emboldened by his mirth. “Where have you been? What have you been doing?” she asks. “Tell me everything,” she adds, as if she has any right to every detail of his life. As if they’re old friends and not two lost souls who’d merely happened upon each other once.
lilian
