05-08-2023, 08:24 PM
— neuna
It’s not lost on her that he does not answer or that the quiet that follows stretches and stretches until she feels no urge to disturb it. She is a simple thing, certainly, but she is not foolish. She knows that there must be some reason he doesn’t want to elaborate, so she does not press him. She merely accepts the silence as an answer in itself.
He returns her sentiment, drawing her gaze back to his face, and she notes that his smile flickers and fades so quickly that it’s as if it had not been there at all. (She feels her heart twinge, feels it sink, knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that she’s said something wrong. She’s done something wrong. And the reality of it tangles itself into an anxious knot in the pit of her gut.)
He says then that he shouldn’t stay and her throat constricts. (She remembers, in flashes, an encounter at the edge of the river. The anger she’d found there and how it had stung like rejection. But the creature she’d met that day had not tried to disguise his anger, his bitterness, he had made absolutely no effort to be her friend. He certainly had not told her that he was glad to have met her). She draws in a shuddering breath just as he startles and she follows his gaze to the raccoon.
And, despite the sudden ache in her chest, she laughs.
She laughs out loud at the sight of the thing as it shuffles up the trunk of a tree.
She laughs and the knot in her gut dissolves.
And the smile remains even after she’s gone quiet, even after she’s turned her focus back to him. “You’re a mystery, Nemeon,” she tells him. “Will I see you again?” she asks, tilts her head. “I promise I won’t ever try to touch you again,” she vows, that smile turning crooked, self-conscious.
He returns her sentiment, drawing her gaze back to his face, and she notes that his smile flickers and fades so quickly that it’s as if it had not been there at all. (She feels her heart twinge, feels it sink, knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that she’s said something wrong. She’s done something wrong. And the reality of it tangles itself into an anxious knot in the pit of her gut.)
He says then that he shouldn’t stay and her throat constricts. (She remembers, in flashes, an encounter at the edge of the river. The anger she’d found there and how it had stung like rejection. But the creature she’d met that day had not tried to disguise his anger, his bitterness, he had made absolutely no effort to be her friend. He certainly had not told her that he was glad to have met her). She draws in a shuddering breath just as he startles and she follows his gaze to the raccoon.
And, despite the sudden ache in her chest, she laughs.
She laughs out loud at the sight of the thing as it shuffles up the trunk of a tree.
She laughs and the knot in her gut dissolves.
And the smile remains even after she’s gone quiet, even after she’s turned her focus back to him. “You’re a mystery, Nemeon,” she tells him. “Will I see you again?” she asks, tilts her head. “I promise I won’t ever try to touch you again,” she vows, that smile turning crooked, self-conscious.
@Nemeon