[private] I think it's strange you never knew

[isakov]

throw me in the water, don’t think about the splash i will create
leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped

He does not know what’s happened only that there is an urgent need to fix it.
How his heart spasms at the sound of the child’s cry, the strangled sob that creeps up her throat as she looks him in the eye and then nods. 

It is Avelina that speaks but it is the girl he addresses when he says, “we just need to be brave.”

The children have changed him but he cannot resent them for it.
He was not built for love, Isakov.
But he loves them, he knows that and he does not hate them for the softness they draw out of him. Just as he does not hate the child’s mother for the kindness she elicits.

“Can you be brave?” he asks the child and finds her forehead solid when he touches it gently.

He does not wait for an answer before he returns his attention to Avelina.
Her tears pain him, too. But he does not allow himself to dwell on them, not this time. Not the same way he did the last time. 

He does not ask her what has happened, there is no time for that now. 
There will be plenty of time for that later. Instead, he steadily meets her eye and says again, “it’s all right.”

Whether or not this appears to make a difference he says firmly but not unkindly, “Avelina” to center her focus on him. “Take a deep breath.” He draws in a long breath of his own, as if to demonstrate. “Think about your bones,” he tells her. “Think about all of the things that make you real.”

 

isakov

@[Avelina]