With every broken bone, I swear I lived
Traitorous lips betrayed the fluttery lightness that settled in her chest when Harper said he liked being with her. A small smile slipped past her defenses, light as the day around them, and color crept back into her cheeks. Dangerous, that feeling. It whispered to her that perhaps her affections had grown more than she'd realized, that it was already too late to pretend like this conversation was only hypothetical.
A red-streaked fruit toppled from the pile and rolled off into the grass. Maea shifted, Harper's hand on her arm an anchor that kept her listening without interrupting. They had always been good at that, hadn't they? Listening. Sharing the space with equal willingness to hear the other person out. Pale lavender eyes met with his blue without flinching, and kept roaming his face long after Harper looked away.
"... what if I wanted to try?" Dislike of the word aside, it was the only term that really worked, as a general word that encompassed so much and so little at the same time. Frought with implications, the way they used it to paint pictures of a hazy future together. "I know I can't solve all your problems. I could keep you company, though, while you figure things out. And share what I have until you know what you want. I don't think it's cowardly to lean on others from time to time - or let yourself be cared for when you are feeling lost."
Letting the apples roll from her shirt back onto the ground, Maea reached out a hand to brush dark curls from Harper's eyes. They may be sad, and worried, but she wanted to see them anyway. Her fingers were cold. Harper's hair was soft; she could easily spend the rest of the day just combing her fingers through it, if he let her.
"When it comes to knowing whether I'd be caged or not... I suppose you would have to trust me. And believe that I know myself enough not to agree to something that make me unhappy. If it ever came to that... I would tell you. Just like I'd tell you if I ever needed to go somewhere, or do something." That held true even now, when their friendship was the only certain thing between them. It also answered a question he hadn't asked; because no matter how she twisted and turned it, she couldn't think of anything that would make her leave him behind without a word of explanation, if... well. If they ever found themselves in that kind of... relationship.
She really was saying too much.
A red-streaked fruit toppled from the pile and rolled off into the grass. Maea shifted, Harper's hand on her arm an anchor that kept her listening without interrupting. They had always been good at that, hadn't they? Listening. Sharing the space with equal willingness to hear the other person out. Pale lavender eyes met with his blue without flinching, and kept roaming his face long after Harper looked away.
"... what if I wanted to try?" Dislike of the word aside, it was the only term that really worked, as a general word that encompassed so much and so little at the same time. Frought with implications, the way they used it to paint pictures of a hazy future together. "I know I can't solve all your problems. I could keep you company, though, while you figure things out. And share what I have until you know what you want. I don't think it's cowardly to lean on others from time to time - or let yourself be cared for when you are feeling lost."
Letting the apples roll from her shirt back onto the ground, Maea reached out a hand to brush dark curls from Harper's eyes. They may be sad, and worried, but she wanted to see them anyway. Her fingers were cold. Harper's hair was soft; she could easily spend the rest of the day just combing her fingers through it, if he let her.
"When it comes to knowing whether I'd be caged or not... I suppose you would have to trust me. And believe that I know myself enough not to agree to something that make me unhappy. If it ever came to that... I would tell you. Just like I'd tell you if I ever needed to go somewhere, or do something." That held true even now, when their friendship was the only certain thing between them. It also answered a question he hadn't asked; because no matter how she twisted and turned it, she couldn't think of anything that would make her leave him behind without a word of explanation, if... well. If they ever found themselves in that kind of... relationship.
She really was saying too much.
maea
