and i must pour forth
a river of words
a river of words
S
he doesn’t think he is real at first, smiling at her from beyond the window. She thinks he might be a dream, or a figment of her imagination - her tutors always did tell her she had too wild of an imagination, spent too long daydreaming when she should be studying. And for only a moment, she is afraid to believe that he might be real. Her heart trembles inside of her chest, stuttering; she holds her breath (even though she has been told to not, when the “episodes” come on), and counts. Six long, trembling half-beats, six sharp clenches - and then it evens out again. She lets out her breath shakily, and still the boy is there, rainwater dripping down his pale face, green eyes shining like a secret he can’t wait to tell.
He smiles at her.
Maret’s lips twitch into an almost-smile. But then it falters, slips away before it can become something more.
She stares at him, mismatched eyes trying hard (too hard) to be blank and uncaring, so hard they fail. All of her emotions are there for him to see: her longing, her uncertainty, the sound of her parents’ voices telling her to stay inside echoing painfully in her mind. ”Doctor’s orders,” her father had told her, and ”we just want you to be safe.” She didn’t understand why a cold was so much more harmful to her than the other kids her age.
She huffs at the boy, envying him, half expecting him to disappear like a cloud of her imagination taking off into the sky. But he stands rooted there, absolutely still, only his otter swinging like a scarf from his neck. But he is outside, and she is not - she bet he didn’t have parents telling him to stay indoors all the time, when all he wanted to do was run.
For half a heartbeat, she considers turning away then and pretending he didn’t exist after all. But something in his eyes has her leaning into the window again, and whispering to him through the glass -
"Are you real?"
Why, oh why did her heart clench tightly at the words once again? Was it, too, daring to hope that he would say yes?
{ @pan "speaks" notes: Still trying to feel her out ahh sorry. has the chance to become something more. }
