I never cared for anyone so much. I was born with a bomb inside my gut.
She has no reason not to believe him.
He knows himself better than she will ever know him.
But weathering his fury, swallowing down his disdain, is preferable to the crippling loneliness. Because she has shackled herself to the memory of how their figures had collided at the edge of the river as he’d scrambled to save her from herself just as she’d salvaged what remained of her self-preservation. The thought that some part of him had cared enough to be angry that she had put herself in danger. The thought that he thought her worth saving.
She drags in a thin breath and nods her understanding. “Okay,” she says, finally. She tries for another smile but the corners of her mouth don’t even quiver. Her heart trembles, though, in the cavern of her chest in a way that hitches her breath. Her father had taken her shortly after her birth and the two of them wandered for years until time and distance stole him away from her. She has never had any place to call home and the idea of co-existing fills her with bitter trepidation.
But she swallows and she nods again. “I’d like to go to Sylva,” she murmurs, blinks up at him and then adds, “with you.”
lilian
