I never cared for anyone so much. I was born with a bomb inside my gut.
There is some small part of her that wants to shrink.
To recoil from the unsolicited kindness of this stranger.
Because she will sully it, she thinks, damage it in some way. Because she does not deserve it. But the chestnut mare smiles at her and, for the first time in a very long time, there is a warmth that reaches outward from the very center of her. It buoys the tired heart, pools heat in her limbs and in her cheeks. It is very much like standing in the light of her own personal sun, she finds, and she tries to savor it before the inevitable guilt snakes its way through her veins.
“Perhaps,” she agrees and her own smile takes on a new shape. Something a little more confident, something that does not slip at its edges.
The mare offers her help and it twists something sharp in Lilian’s chest. She does not know what to make of this kindness and hopes that it does not show on her face. The things she is looking for are not tangible things, she knows, not the kinds of things that can be found with the naked eye. But Lilian does not know how to explain this, doesn’t even know how to try. So, she says nothing.
Lilli, the mare says, and Lilian’s expression lightens. She could point out the obvious similarity in their names, but she almost immediately feels foolish for having noticed it when Lilli does not seem as delighted by it. So, she merely nods and says, “it’s nice to meet you, too, Lilli.” Because it feels like the right thing to say. It’s true, certainly, but she has not always known how to say the true things.
Lilian is still trying to work out how exactly to politely decline help in finding the things that she’s spent the vast majority of her life searching for and will likely never find when Lilli saves her from this train of thought, coaxes her back to the present. She lifts her head a fraction and nods.
“I would like that,” she murmurs. And perhaps she should be grateful that this kind stranger has rescued her from the stranglehold of her loneliness, but she does not know quite how to react to Lilli’s goodness. She finds herself at odds with the feelings thrumming in her chest. The body wants to reject the kindness, wants to cast itself into the darkness of the wood where it belongs, while the heart yearns to stay here in the light Lilli provides.
lilian
@[lilliana]