07-21-2015, 11:29 AM
Like her, he tries to take pleasure in merely existing. He gives thanks when the roving strangers’ eyes pass by him. When he wakes, unbroken, to each new day. He has even found a friend, a woman of steel with a wolfish glint in her eye, whom he followed up stones and beheld the crash of the waterfall.
(He had thought, the entire time, how easily such a marvel would break him. Every wonder of the land is a deathtrap to boys and girls made of glass.)
And when his mind pipes up, speaks of legends, of love written in the stars, he shushes it. He is not and never will be a powerful man. He is not and never will be a great lover (for who would want such a delicate creature as he, who might shatter at their touch?). He doubts he will even be a father, for fear of passing it on, of making children who shatter like snow globes across the grass.
But still, ah, sometimes –
Sometimes he dreams of becoming a king, of ruling a land kindly but forcefully. Sometimes he believes of a love so great he might die (or reawaken) for it, the kind their parents had, the kind worthy of odysseys.
Full of dreams and despair, it takes a moment to recognize his name is being spoken, and a moment more to realize who is speaking it.
“Adaline,” he says, the same breathy voice, full of disbelief, “I thought…”
Thought you were dead, he wants to say, but stops the thought.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
contagion
be careful making wishes in the dark