[P] to be braver

[Marisol]

"Good sense comes the hard way.
And the grace of the gods
(I'm pretty sure)
is a grace that comes by violence."

Marisol will not—cannot—pretend she understands.

She has always known who she is. Often she has hated it. More often than she would like to admit, even. But even the hatred was real because it was a kind of knowing; surety that I am this, and this, and this. I am these many horrible and disappointing things I will never grow out of.

But still. That is its own kind of conviction, and a stronger bond than Marisol has with almost anything (anyone) else.

Nothing is okay. That is true enough. Every night the world falls apart, strained at the places it fell apart the last time and black-eye bruised. The shaking of it renders her sleepless; recently she has been dizzy with insomnia, paranoid that the earth will give way, that the walls will collapse in, that the sky will split in two. The apocalypse feels increasingly inevitable. To live in this world is to take a long walk off a short pier. 

Every night the world falls apart. Every morning it is just strong enough to stand and withstand being knocked down again. Nothing is okay. Certainly.

But it might be tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that; and this small, fearful knot of stubborn optimism is what Marisol feels most strongly when she looks at him, a conviction that in scientific terms, even the impossible is bound to happen at some point in the future.

When the Commander steps closer it is with an uncharacteristic nervousness. Her heart trembles lightly in her chest, its pulse a weak, flighty thing like a hummingbird. Even caught in the brisk seaside air her skin feels far too hot, her muscles wound up far too tight; and when she catches the blue shine of his eyes straight on it feels like dying. Like losing your footing on the edge of a cliff, like swallowing against the silver of a blade; like surrendering, surrendering, surrendering.

The sea roars behind them, and Marisol cannot help but wonder (with a sinking feeling) which one of them he would choose, if he had to.

She is still overwhelmed by that sinking feeling at the moment he reaches out to touch her. For a brief moment her body fights a civil war over what to feel—disgusted with herself for wanted to ask such a question, horrified that she feels so possessive, relieved that he has still chosen to want her—but at last her posture loosens, drawn out of its stiffness by the pleasantly unfamiliar feeling of Orestes’ nose against the arch of her neck. Mari blows out a long-held breath that ruffles his salt-caked hair. 

For a moment there is nothing but the comforting weight of his head resting on her shoulder, the empty woosh of wind. Clouds turn the sunlight a soft dove-gray. Behind them the ocean rises and falls, rises and falls, moans and sighs, and she squeezes her eyes closed, overwhelmed.

“I know who you are,” Mari says finally, softly. “And—I love him."

“Speaking.”

credits