there's a moment we make a decision; Zai

[Valkerine]

there's a moment we make a decision
not to cower and crash to the ground

Perhaps she should push him away. Perhaps that's what her parents would want, for her to be strong, to need no one (or at least, need no one but her sister). But in this moment, in this exquisite sadness, none of that matters. Nothing matters but the fact that he is here and he is warm and between him and the tree she almost feels like it might be all right someday.

Seamlessly, without hesitation, she presses into him as surely as she'd once pressed into the tree. The tears still fall, but they fall into Zai's coat now. She cries for the simple reasons, for the loss that she and her sister have endured, for all the moments in the future where she'll miss her parents, for all the grief that wracks her in the present. She cries because it is all too much, because the pain is too sharp, because she has too many emotions and simply knows of nothing else she can do but let them bubble over.

And after a while, the emotional bloodletting is over. She is weakened by it, drained by the outpouring of her emotions, but the worst of the storm is over. The rain has passed, and it's left behind a land drowned into silence. But as is the way of things, life will go on. In the calm, there are glimmers of the sun.

"Zai…" she sighs, almost breathless. There's so much packed into the one small expression: wistfulness, gratitude, a little bit of irony at the name that calls back to the innocence they both know is now gone forever. She'll regain some of it someday – it's not in her nature to be depressed, to be kept down for the rest of her days – but it will be a long, slow road. She offers him a watery smile. "Thanks."

The smile fades and her brown eyes are dark with loss. When she speaks, she tries to smile, tries to lace her voice with the hint of humor, but it just comes out sounding sad. "What the hell do I do now?"

valkerine

sad tomboy daughter of covet & librette

Image credit MultiCurious