He is not used to the sound of his name like that—tentative and sad. He has heard it growled angrily and spat and, more often than not, ignored. It nearly startles him and his light grey eyes flicker upward, grow a little thoughtful and pensive and his mouth presses into a thin line as he continues to sink into himself.
Even though he feels himself unravel around the thought, he still watches her, still picks up on the small cues that she gives to the ways she fractures inside. To the way she looks away when he brings up a home and he curses himself for asking. He knew firsthand what a sensitive subject it was.
The self-loathing returns and his throat tightens around it.
“The meadow is nice,” he says, acutely aware of how lame it sounds. His nose wrinkles, and he thinks about the times he has been there. He thinks about how you can feel all alone even when you are completely surrounded by others. He thinks about the loneliness that can set in so quickly.
For a moment, he is silent and he struggles to come up with what to say. He can’t exactly tell her how he understands whatever it is that she is feeling—whatever it is that he thinks she is thinking, of course. He can’t imagine the feeling of cracking open his ribs and letting it spill out when he barely knows her.
So he is quiet instead, letting the silence stretch and the disappointment in himself simmer.
Finally, he feels himself glance up again and study her face. “I live in Sylva,” he says, wondering why it sounds different than when he had imagined it. Why it sounds more like a statement and less like an offer but he doesn’t know how to rectify that and so he is quiet once more.
BRIGADE
when I was a man I thought it ended when I knew love's perfect ache
but my peace has always depended on all the ashes in my wake