when you came in, the air went out, adna

[adna]

one touch will make you so nervous you might stop breathing
one touch will make you so reckless you might start feeling
one touch will finally show to me what you can't hide

Her heart breaks with each new word that Sabbath says.

It is becoming so clear—so painfully clear—just how much she has let her sister down. How much she has failed to be there for her. She has always been so wrapped up with her own problems, so concerned with her own heartaches, that she never was there to watch out for Sabbath like a sister should.

The failure is a bitter thing on her tongue, and she has to swallow it down.

Swallow it down and let it fester because what else is there to do?

She does her best to keep it from her features and just watch her baby sister who is no longer a baby. Adna just shakes her head. “I should have been there for you,” she says, affirming her previous sentiment with another bump of her nose against her sister’s neck. “I missed you too. I needed you too,” this is a soft confession as she realizes that she had not yet said that—that her sister may not know.

When she describes Prayer, Adna feels it like a gut punch and rolls with it.

“I am sure she is as lovely as mother,” her throat is tight and she is surprised at how normal she sounds.

It takes everything within her to pull her thoughts away from her niece, from Beth’s daughter, and instead rolls her scaled shoulders. “I live in Taiga now,” she says as she thinks of Aten and of the trees that twist around one another. When she realizes that Beth lives there too, her heart begins to thunder, her head starting to hurt, and she grits her teeth. “It’s beautiful. I really like the trees,” she finishes lamely.

ADNA