leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped
He is not a soft thing, Isakov.
And he thinks he should hate her for drawing it out of him.
But he does not hate her as much as he hates the scars on her neck.
The places where the feathers were missing.
He does not hate her as much as the burning in his gut when he thinks of someone hurting her.
He does not hate her as much as the thought of her fear.
The thought of her broken heart.
He could never.
He holds her close and he thinks of nothing else but how desperately he wants to keep her safe and he does not let himself hate her for it and he does not hate himself for it either. He will gnash his teeth at this terrible softness later.
But for now he smiles and he lets her words soothe him. He is her dearest friend, she says, and she trusts him. And this means something, he knows that. He doesn’t know what it means because he is not a soft thing but he lets it inject a new, foreign warmth into his heart. He lets her words sink into the marrow of his bones, lets them radiate heat from the inside out. He holds onto her and breathes and lets her kindness fill up all the empty space in his chest.
He holds onto her and lets himself entertain the idea of what it might mean to be good. He kisses her brow and draws away. Studies her face and pulls on a lopsided smile. “I didn’t know how noisy I was until I met you,” he says and separates himself from her then, suddenly self-conscious. Because he is not a soft thing and he doesn’t know how to be.
Just because he would never hurt her does not mean that he is kind.
“Maybe you can teach me how to be quiet,” he suggests.
@[Avelina]