like the bullet you never saw coming; beth

[bethlehem]

I can get there on my own. you can leave me here alone.

Her plea sinks into the very marrow of his bones.
It quivers quietly in the charged air between them.
He swallows it and it leaves a bitter acid in its wake.

But he has so much to be sorry for, he finds, that the reasons gather at the base of his throat and try in vain to claw their way up it. He struggles to stifle them, smother them. He sews his mouth up tight and turns his gaze away and tries to find some equilibrium.

He is exhausted, he realizes. Perhaps because she is the only soul in this entire god forsaken land he’s ever come across more than once. Both times by chance, though he cannot help but feel like fate has played some part in this. Fate must have injected that want for a home and roots into his veins and led him here. To her. To them. Because his gaze falls heavy on the swell of her belly again and that heart he’d forgotten he had swells until it feels too big for its ribbed cage.

And he finally - finally - moves toward her. It takes only a few strides to totally eliminate the murky distance between them. He does not speak either, merely closes his eyes as he draws near and presses his mouth against her barrel. He does not breathe, stills himself completely as he seeks out some sign of the life within her. Their life. Equal parts of both of them. He wonders if the child will look like him – ordinary – or like its mother – beautiful and reptilian.

“What will we name it?” he murmurs into her skin.

BETHLEHEM

I'm just tryin' to do what's right. oh, a man ain't a man unless he's fought the fight.