I never cared for anyone so much. I was born with a bomb inside my gut.
She burns with shame.
It had been reduced to smoldering embers.
But they flare now and they lick at her ribcage, the underside of her tender heart.
They pool heat in her cheeks and her eyes burn in a way that has nothing to do with tears.
She has never actively wanted to be invisible until now. She has never wanted to disappear until this moment. The silence that follows her bold assumption about a man she does not know, has never seen, has certainly never spoken to. She has drawn judgments based on one split second and she deserves whatever fury he rains down upon her, she thinks.
She swallows thickly and yearns to look away. But he’s staring at her and she cannot summon the courage to look away. She wants to apologize. She can feel it gather on her tongue. She can feel its barbed edges as it claws its way up her throat. She drags in a shuddering breath and feels something inside of her break loose when he finally speaks.
Had it sounded like she was accusing him of something? The corners of her mouth turn down in a frown and she shakes her head, studies him a beat longer.
“I’m sorry,” she finally whispers and her eyelids flutter heavy and she finally looks away. “I’ve really made a mess of this.” Of what? A thing that perhaps was never meant to exist in the first place? An interaction between two strangers whose paths happened to cross at a very strange moment in time? Her life, maybe.
lilian
