only silence remained, holding my breath in the dark; gasping for air with the lungs of a lark
Were she more self-aware, she would hate the way that looking at him makes her stomach twist. Would hate the way that she feels so vulnerable in front of him, how he makes her feel small and yet cherished. She would recognize that she feels like prey before him and would turn and run—would leave him.
But she is not self-aware.
She is just a girl who is caught in the crossfire of his lavender gaze, who feels special when she is with him, who feels a desperate need to continue feeling that way. His smile is warm and she feels it like a fire against outstretched palms. There is a moment that she leans forward, as though pitched by the oceanic waves of that need, before she remembers herself and pulls back, shy and demure once more.
When he studies her, she glances up from behind her lashes, feeling a nervous need to be enough. She is beautiful, she knows, in the way that all of her siblings are—but she is not the most of them. She may have tiger stripes that run down her limber body, opal hooves that shine even when buried in the muck, and a faint milky glow that casts from her, but she has no flowers braided into her golden-threaded hair. Her body does not shimmer with gold like her brother’s. She has no proud antlers atop her head.
Would she be enough for him?
“I would never forget,” it comes out quickly—rushed, the words tumbling over themselves. She realizes almost too late the faint desperation in her voice and curses herself. If only she could know how easily he thumbs through her own thoughts. “I didn’t want to leave,” she admits, again feeling heat rise to her cheeks as the truth is so easily stripped from her before him. “I just didn’t know how to come back.”
If I could come back, she thinks, but this feels too pitiful to admit—even for her.
@[Molech]