love was a country we couldn't defend, thorn

[prayer]

The heat he’d injected into the very center of her dissolves around the soft edges of her mirth until it is merely a warm glow. She studies him with a kind of breathless wonder as he grins back at her. It is not that she was reared by sorrow but there was a sadness in her mother’s bones that they were both powerless against. A kind of sadness that Prayer knew nothing about and would hopefully never feel in the marrow of her own bones. It’s hard to imagine sadness, though, when he’s grinning at her and her heart is pounding so recklessly in the center of her chest that she can barely breathe around it. They are standing side-by-side now and she is tingling with something unfamiliar. She offers up her answer like a secret and watches, wide-eyed, as he hurls himself into the water. She gasps and goes absolutely still for the space of a breath before she throws back her head and shrieks with laughter. It is such a delighted sound that it makes her dizzy. This is the first time anyone will ever do anything for her. She skitters down the bank of the river, shaking her head, giggling wildly as she goes. She loses her footing, shrieks again as she slides in the mud to the edge of the river. She can hardly breathe around her laughter as she tiptoes into the water, reaching out to bump his shoulder with her nose. “Come out of there,” she giggles, shuffling backwards out of the water. “I like you! I don’t want it to eat you!” p r a y e r