11-04-2016, 11:16 PM
He stiffens and she realizes her mistake. She can see it in the way that he straightens, in the way that his expression flattens and changes. This hurt, this loss, it makes her selfish. It builds a barrier between them that forces them apart and she is not quick enough to knock it down again. “Tobiah,” she tries, her eyes sad and round and uncertain, “I’m sorry.” Her gaze peels from his, flung skyward and away because shame makes it hard to look at him. “I’ve never hurt like this before,” she whispers, and it sounds ridiculous even to her ears, “I don’t know how to do this.”
But he is better than her, more than her.
He makes it better and it is effortless.
Always. He tells her, and it feels like a promise even if he fumbles when he offers it to her. She pauses, wide-eyed and uncertain, and then reaches out to trace the lines of confusion etched into his pale, curved face with the soft of her trembling lips. Always. The word echoes in her ears until the pounding of her heart has matched the rhythm and it is all she can hear, all she is aware of until she remembers how to breathe again.
And then-
“Always.” She agrees quietly, urgently, from beneath the furrow of a dark and white brow as she steps close again to fold herself into the warmth of his broad chest. Her cheek finds his shoulder and her lips find a spot of pale gold where she can trace the outline of color, following the edge where cream ends and white begins. “Promise me,” she whispers against his skin, closing her eyes because it is so much to ask, too much, and yet she will because she must, because she cannot help herself, “promise me you’ll stay. We can discover this place together, we can make it okay.”
She pulls away so that she can see his face, so that she’ll know if he promises her something that he doesn’t want. “I don’t want you to have to come looking for me,” she tells him at last, vulnerable, and her chest heaves with the effort of speaking, of confessing, “I just want you to stay.”
But he is better than her, more than her.
He makes it better and it is effortless.
Always. He tells her, and it feels like a promise even if he fumbles when he offers it to her. She pauses, wide-eyed and uncertain, and then reaches out to trace the lines of confusion etched into his pale, curved face with the soft of her trembling lips. Always. The word echoes in her ears until the pounding of her heart has matched the rhythm and it is all she can hear, all she is aware of until she remembers how to breathe again.
And then-
“Always.” She agrees quietly, urgently, from beneath the furrow of a dark and white brow as she steps close again to fold herself into the warmth of his broad chest. Her cheek finds his shoulder and her lips find a spot of pale gold where she can trace the outline of color, following the edge where cream ends and white begins. “Promise me,” she whispers against his skin, closing her eyes because it is so much to ask, too much, and yet she will because she must, because she cannot help herself, “promise me you’ll stay. We can discover this place together, we can make it okay.”
She pulls away so that she can see his face, so that she’ll know if he promises her something that he doesn’t want. “I don’t want you to have to come looking for me,” she tells him at last, vulnerable, and her chest heaves with the effort of speaking, of confessing, “I just want you to stay.”