12-20-2019, 01:36 AM
sometimes I'm terrified of my heart;
of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants —
She doesn’t notice the way that he looks at her, because he is not the first.
She has always known she was beautiful, because her mother told her, and because she could see how beautiful Stave was, and she was just like him. She could tilt her head back and take in a night sky full of stars and know that was almost what others saw when they looked at her – almost, because she is so much more than just stars. She is covered in the very stardust and stars that she had been created in, crafted from the galaxy where she had been conceived. She is not just constellations and nebulas – she is a map to a place that almost no one has ever been to.
But she is too young to recognize that he looks at her differently. That maybe he thinks she is more than just another pretty face, and that her touch had lit something inside of him. She would learn, someday, that the things she is careless and reckless with – her touch, her heart, and their hearts, too – were things that others treasured and kept safe. That fragile things were meant to be handled with care, but she was meant to be a hurricane.
She stops when he does, mirroring his smile with one of her own. “Thomas,” she repeats his name, and she finds that she is again stepping closer to him. She can feel the heat that radiates like waves off of the glass, and she is fascinated by it, but she does not touch him again. “Where did I come from? I was born in Tephra but –” and she pauses, angling her head back to gesture at the galaxy coloring that covered her, “My mother said my brother and I came from the stars.”
“And you?” She asks, and this time she does touch him again – her delicate nose following the slender arch of his neck, marveling at the smoothness of it. “What are you made of?”
She has always known she was beautiful, because her mother told her, and because she could see how beautiful Stave was, and she was just like him. She could tilt her head back and take in a night sky full of stars and know that was almost what others saw when they looked at her – almost, because she is so much more than just stars. She is covered in the very stardust and stars that she had been created in, crafted from the galaxy where she had been conceived. She is not just constellations and nebulas – she is a map to a place that almost no one has ever been to.
But she is too young to recognize that he looks at her differently. That maybe he thinks she is more than just another pretty face, and that her touch had lit something inside of him. She would learn, someday, that the things she is careless and reckless with – her touch, her heart, and their hearts, too – were things that others treasured and kept safe. That fragile things were meant to be handled with care, but she was meant to be a hurricane.
She stops when he does, mirroring his smile with one of her own. “Thomas,” she repeats his name, and she finds that she is again stepping closer to him. She can feel the heat that radiates like waves off of the glass, and she is fascinated by it, but she does not touch him again. “Where did I come from? I was born in Tephra but –” and she pauses, angling her head back to gesture at the galaxy coloring that covered her, “My mother said my brother and I came from the stars.”
“And you?” She asks, and this time she does touch him again – her delicate nose following the slender arch of his neck, marveling at the smoothness of it. “What are you made of?”
Desire