The emotions that churn in her are new and difficult to pull apart. They are fierce and she cuts her teeth on them, feels them with every new breath. But is the warmth that she feels the most, suffusing through her as she concentrates on the way it makes her feel relaxed and highly alert at once. As if she could stay for hours, basking in his presence, and desperate to run away in the next. It makes her flesh tingle and she smiles, enjoying the strange and pleasant, uncomfortable sensation as they continue to talk across the distance.
She just dips her head as he says he thinks it counts, a rush of appreciation spearing toward him. She didn’t have anything to ask—if her trying was enough, if she was enough—and hearing it validated means more than she could possibly explain. So there are no words in response. Words failing as she feels the ice crawl over her skin, a thick layer of it spreading from her spine down her shoulders.
There’s no chill in response and she steps toward him, that heady rush of anticipation and thrill of being close to him crashing through her and then rippling out, unknowingly, to him. She continues to signal her every emotion as they fall into step next to one another, her young heart pounding with the closeness to any other soul after so long by herself, but mostly by being near him. Without speaking, she angles them toward the river, hearing the distant crash of the water and wanting to feel that ferocity.
For a moment, her only response to his apology is a grief so large and yawning that it sweeps everything out of the way. She feels it open up before her and she swallows hard, that darkness beckoning. It takes effort to slam the door shut on it and step back, to lock up her sorrow and loneliness. When she focuses on him again, it is there, but muted, followed by confusion. “Please don’t apologize,” she whispers, her voice quieter than it has been. “It had just happened. I didn’t know how to talk about it yet.”
She sighs softly, looking up ahead.
“I still don’t feel like I have the words, but I’m trying there too.”
She wonders if this, too, is enough.
@Selaphiel