marked me like a bloodstain
She feels the way he gathers her arm into his lap like he’s trying to hold water in his hands—gentle but desperate, every finger threaded tight as if he believes enough warmth could will the brightness back into her. She lets him; lets him pull her in and cradle her arm and wrap his hands over hers, lets him speak soft reprimands with kind eyes and a mouth too sweet for the weight of this room. But she doesn’t lean in or collapse against him. Not because she doesn’t want to, though. There’s a wild, aching part of her that wants to slip beneath his touch like it’s surf meeting shore, wants to pour herself into the curve of his chest and disappear there for a while. But something inside her is hollowed out, bruised and echoing, and the space between his kindness and her ruin feels too wide to cross just now with all the lines creating x's across the only path she knows.
Flora's body is boneless against Kai's, heavy and languid from salves and sleeplessness, but her heart stays curled in on itself, a tight bud refusing to bloom. After Jack—after the awful, final tenderness of that goodbye and the quiet devastation it left behind—Flora doesn’t have it in her to wade through the murky waters of what is and isn't allowed with Kai, not even when he’s right here trying to gather her back together like sea glass in his palms.
She glances at him when he mentions death like it’s meant to mean something bigger than it does in their world, and the truth is, she doesn’t know how to frame her pain against the lives that her parents lead. She’s not divine like they are, though. She hasn't been tasked with anything; she’s just reckless, so really, doesn't she only have herself to blame?
His fingers brush the backs of hers, light as breath, and then he’s lifting her hand to his mouth, and it’s that—that—that starts to undoe her. The softness. The reverence. The way his lips press into her skin like it’s something precious, something worth saving. Her eyes sting almost instantly, tears threatening to rise without the drama of a sob or the courage of a cry. Just water, plain and simple, like the ocean she’s trying to pretend she’s sitting in.
It’s almost a relief when he lets her go, bending to remove his boots, and she looks away—blinks fast, wipes nothing from her cheek. "No dummy," she says, lighter than she feels. "The ocean is full of sand, not dirt." The corner of her mouth lifts, but the smile doesn’t quite take root. And then—quieter now, the hush of dusk settling over something raw—she adds, "but no. I'm not okay." Her toes shift in the water. "I don’t know where I belong anymore. Or what I’m supposed to do now." The words fall like confession, like surrender. "I think I've fucked everything up." Everything with him, everything with Jack, everything with Dahlia and the Family, with Torchline and her bar.
Flora's body is boneless against Kai's, heavy and languid from salves and sleeplessness, but her heart stays curled in on itself, a tight bud refusing to bloom. After Jack—after the awful, final tenderness of that goodbye and the quiet devastation it left behind—Flora doesn’t have it in her to wade through the murky waters of what is and isn't allowed with Kai, not even when he’s right here trying to gather her back together like sea glass in his palms.
She glances at him when he mentions death like it’s meant to mean something bigger than it does in their world, and the truth is, she doesn’t know how to frame her pain against the lives that her parents lead. She’s not divine like they are, though. She hasn't been tasked with anything; she’s just reckless, so really, doesn't she only have herself to blame?
His fingers brush the backs of hers, light as breath, and then he’s lifting her hand to his mouth, and it’s that—that—that starts to undoe her. The softness. The reverence. The way his lips press into her skin like it’s something precious, something worth saving. Her eyes sting almost instantly, tears threatening to rise without the drama of a sob or the courage of a cry. Just water, plain and simple, like the ocean she’s trying to pretend she’s sitting in.
It’s almost a relief when he lets her go, bending to remove his boots, and she looks away—blinks fast, wipes nothing from her cheek. "No dummy," she says, lighter than she feels. "The ocean is full of sand, not dirt." The corner of her mouth lifts, but the smile doesn’t quite take root. And then—quieter now, the hush of dusk settling over something raw—she adds, "but no. I'm not okay." Her toes shift in the water. "I don’t know where I belong anymore. Or what I’m supposed to do now." The words fall like confession, like surrender. "I think I've fucked everything up." Everything with him, everything with Jack, everything with Dahlia and the Family, with Torchline and her bar.
