HARPER
He watches her pull her hair up into a bun for lack of anything else to do, firmly rooted to the stucco below but feeling unmoored in the face of her emotions. They are too similar, and he can tell, which means they are dancing empathetic circles around each other, wanting to heal their counterpart while wincing away from touches to their own tender wounds. "It is," he says softly, the wind alone ensuring she hears it, lest it otherwise die the moment it leaves his lips. Gazing out over the sunlit peaks of the buildings around them, he sighs. "But I can choose to remain where I am, sad and lost, or I can keep moving. Keep trying. All other choices aside, it always comes down to that." Shrugging, he scratches idly at his palm, calloused and scarred, and flicks a bit of pebble from its indent where he'd climbed up to join her. Harper's eyes find hers from the corner of his own, giving a small smile. "So I choose to move."
He hadn't intended for his own relatively vague answer to prompt her to share her own woes, but once she begins they seem to crest and fall like waves. Harper was never much one for overthinking, for doubt and hemming and hawing. He sees her, hurting and confused, and does what he does best. Harper wraps her inside his arms, turning so that she can hide her face against his neck, and squeezes firmly enough to root her back into her body. For a moment he simply rocks her there, wanting her to know he was not simply jumping to shallow answers, sitting with her in the mire of her pain to let her know she wasn't alone. Only then does he speak.
"Silly girl, you're doing exactly what it is you need to be." A scarred hand tucks a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. "You are healing them by listening. By sharing. It feels better to say it, doesn't it? That you're overwhelmed, that you're hurting?" Because it's not arrogance that lets him know how it helps, it's firsthand experience. Like draining a cyst, releasing all the rot and pressure from inside so that things could begin to heal.
He hadn't intended for his own relatively vague answer to prompt her to share her own woes, but once she begins they seem to crest and fall like waves. Harper was never much one for overthinking, for doubt and hemming and hawing. He sees her, hurting and confused, and does what he does best. Harper wraps her inside his arms, turning so that she can hide her face against his neck, and squeezes firmly enough to root her back into her body. For a moment he simply rocks her there, wanting her to know he was not simply jumping to shallow answers, sitting with her in the mire of her pain to let her know she wasn't alone. Only then does he speak.
"Silly girl, you're doing exactly what it is you need to be." A scarred hand tucks a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. "You are healing them by listening. By sharing. It feels better to say it, doesn't it? That you're overwhelmed, that you're hurting?" Because it's not arrogance that lets him know how it helps, it's firsthand experience. Like draining a cyst, releasing all the rot and pressure from inside so that things could begin to heal.
if brokenness is a form of art
I must be a poster child prodigy
I must be a poster child prodigy
