I never cared for anyone so much. I was born with a bomb inside my gut.
She doesn’t know why she’s said it.
Perhaps because it had become too heavy to carry on her own.
Because the thought it might be easier to stomach if someone else knew it, too.
Maybe it would not feel so big, so insurmountable, so suffocating.
But she knows as soon as she’s said it that it was a mistake. She thinks about taking her leave. She wonders what it might be like to do the leaving, rather than being left. She could apologize and move on and try to convince herself that she would never think about this again. How foolish she’d been. Stupid, ignorant girl, thinking a thin sheet of ice might somehow support her. As if feeling invisible made her weightless.
The silence is almost unbearable and she watches in abject horror as another storm passes over his face. Her muscles tremble with all of the energy it takes to pull themselves taut beneath the surface. She is not afraid, really. It is something akin to fear, but it is not the same terror that had closed an iron fist around her throat as she’d skittered back to shore. In comparison, it is subdued. But she could still choke on it, she thinks.
But then, mercifully, he speaks. An eye for an eye. A confession for a confession and it is a kindness she had not expected. It could take her to her knees if she let it. She cannot dwell on it, certain that it will bring her to tears if she does. She swallows thickly and grits her teeth and tries to imagine what it might be like to want to be alone. Perhaps she might feel differently if it were a matter of choice.
She blinks her surprise, inadvertently shifting her focus back to his face. She knows better than to ask about this, too. So, for a moment, she merely studies him. Her expression betrays nothing as she searches his eyes and then speaks like forgiveness. “I’m sure you didn’t mean it.”
lilian
