[mature] things we never thought we could be, adna

[bethlehem]

sometimes i wonder, will god ever forgive us for what we've done to each other? B E T H L E H E M then i look around and realize, god left this place a long time ago How have they arrived here? It is only a matter of moments but he can already feel her in the marrow of his bones. In the holy architecture of his lungs. In the space between each pulse of his bastard heart. Will he still feel her when she’s gone? Will he spend the rest of his life chasing this feeling in the same way, as a child, he had chased love? The anger spits and spirals in the pit of his gut and his nostrils flare with it. He struggles to maintain his composure, to remain impassive, to touch her as if it means nothing at all to him. But it does mean something and he loathes it. Because it finds that it hurts when his heart comes back to life. As it shakes off the rust and the ruin and reminds him that it is there and that it has always been there. It twinges and it hitches his breath and she speaks his name so familiarly that it makes his head swim. But he can blame the dizziness on his inability to breathe. The flesh trembles in the wake of her hot, wandering mouth. His spine aches with it. The space in his chest occupied by his heart aches with it. It tightens a vise around the column of his throat and he wishes again that she’d killed him when she’d had the chance. Because the anger festers so fiercely he can taste it on the surface of his skin. But he is not cruel, Bethlehem, and he does not shrug her off. He kisses her instead. Kisses the jut of her shoulder and the crook of her elbow and the peak of her hipbone. “What took you so long?” he asks then. It should be injected with humor, but it comes out breathless instead.