[open] loneliness has always been with me, any

[astra]

She can feel the embarrassment leach out of him.
To distract herself from the way it tightens like a vise around her throat, she imagines that she can see it running in rivers down his legs. Sinking into the ground, moving swiftly away from the both of them.

And, before she knows it, she can breathe again. Tentatively at first, as if afraid to trust her lungs not to spasm and reject the air. And then deeper, when she is certain that her ribcage will not retaliate. The relief belongs to her only for a moment, though, because she is rather quickly flooded with his relief, too.

She nods in response to his question. Even summons up a shy, slanted smile to accompany it. Better now that she can breathe on her own, now that he’s calmed down and her temples are not throbbing with his embarrassment.

“That’s not a very nice name,” she says, though the faint furrow in her brow when she says it is born more from concern than ridicule. “My name is Astra.”

She tilts her head, nudges her nose in his direction but doesn’t move any closer. “Why is your name Ridiculous?”

maybe we were meant to be lonely

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