you pour the water —
His disappointment cleaves through her, even if she cannot understand it. There is something in the way that he fidgets and steps away, the pregnant silence that follows. Something that is too akin to what she feels when she examines herself—the disappointment at the lack of light that greets her. Oh, how she knows how he feels, how it agonizes her to know that there is nothing but darkness to meet her face.
But she is young still and naive and even hopeful, despite all the things telling her otherwise.
So she doesn’t turn and run away.
She merely lifts her face to his and nods when he offers her name. Then frowns at his confession, pity rising to meet her self-loathing and fear. “Does the sun not shine kindly on you?” she asks and her voice is still soft, perhaps even kind for him—for this boy who can only see darkness and mourns it.
How it must feel to never know the sun’s warmth.
Or even its blistering heat.
“I often choose night over day,” she offers him a truth in exchange for his own, although hers feels flimsy in comparison—something about it nearly self-righteous even though she does not yet know the truth of him. “I find the evening hours to be more…” she searches for the word for a moment, frowning as she tries to discern the correct wording for how the evening makes her feel, “home.”
— I would haul the stones
@Nemeon