[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."

Nothing has ever been so beautiful as the man she is in love with.


And perhaps she did not even know she was in love with him until now, at least not in a way that dared to rise up against the black weight of duty that holds her mind so tight; but when she manages to say it, without even thinking of what she will say before it comes out of her mouth, it makes sense. It sinks into her like teeth. The weight, though not lifted, is shifted to the side to make room for that feeling. Marisol’s pulse pounds hard in her chest and her mouth runs dry.

I am in love with him, and he is so beautiful. Her heart swells in her chest until it is the only thing she can feel, pulsating viciously, making her whole body throb—and she is cowed into silence just by really, truly looking at him.

His eyes, a darker, truer blue than she has ever seen of the sea. The statuesque slope of his cheek, the way his throat moves when he speaks in a voice stretched so tight Marisol fears it might break. The smell of the desert follows him the way waves follow the light of the moon. Wind ruffles his hair into a cap of white seafoam, his face briefly caught up by the storm of it, the curve of his lips briefly hidden, and in this moment she can do nothing but think with a heart-sinking dread of the day he will leave her, or she him. 

Her body runs cold, then numb, then goes completely lights-out. The world blasts open like the unfurling smoke of an explosion and Marisol recognizes at last that it is bigger than she will ever have time for. It kills her. Right now she is dying. Right now she is in the awful moment of realization, the feeling of the bullet hitting before the sound of it reaches you, of watching the sword be unsheathed, of knowing you will die and doing nothing about it.

Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.

Marisol bites her lip. Iron seeps from her tongue. Thank you, he says, and—

her heart plunges out of her mouth and through the bottom of her chest and into the dark, cool, center of the earth, where so many of her ancestors have been laid to rest. 

But then: Thank you. I love you, too. And the blood rushes back into her head and her heart soars back up from the dirt to meet it, and Marisol smiles the trembling, nervous smile of someone just saved from the guillotine. Her eyes glow dark with relief. There is no other version of this story, she tries to remind herself; but it is useless against the overwhelming tide of a feeling like deliverance that washes over her in that next breath. There is no other version of this story, she dares to think, except, maybe, this one.

He presses his forehead against hers. The bite of the wind fades away and Marisol can feel nothing but the stubborn, living warmth he exudes, the light of the sun intermingled with the light of the body.

Something gnaws at her. Something with teeth, a deep-seated knowledge of how many ways this could go wrong. For a moment it sinks into her and shakes like a dog would do with the carcass of a rabbit; for a moment in makes her blood run cold. 

But they have both suffered enough. “Yes,” she says anyway, and turns to lead him back into the city. “Let’s.”

“Speaking.”

credits