( it's a funny thing to radiate life-giving warmth by design, by nature, and to still feel the moment her bones go mind-shockingly numb. her fingers twitch against the affectionate, fond heat of paul's mouth. like summer's last dying breath, before everything turns barren and dead. resentfully, she wishes the same could be said of the garden-bed of love in her chest, the lush field she's tended and nurtured and grown for him, trusting he wouldn't see her trust trampled and uprooted — but hearts have a habit, alina's learned, of beating longer after you've wished they would stop.
without limitations. no distance. the blind fool in her mind wants to insist he means it as she's always thought it — the womb alia and paul had shared, the blood ties that bind them together, the inherent sense of familial togetherness alina will never be privy to. the outsider, watching them through the window of their happiness, a voyeur outside of their home. not — the sickening loop of images alina's mind feeds back to her of alia in paul's bed, sweaty and blissed out in the same sheets he'd promised her children in, just beyond the threshold of the bathroom they share. giggling and joyful, laughing at how stupid she must've been to have never noticed, never suspected.
the aluminum can in her hand creaks, a little, from the steadying force of alina's grip. it's tempting to press him, to tell him to take it back — to tell her to forget it, that he'd lied to test her reaction in reutrn. a cruel prank, at alina's expense, but one she could understand — retribution, maybe, for taking his sister to bed. the other part of her feels sick with it, with the notion of turning a blind eye, thinking of all the times she'd ignored mal tangling himself in women's tents — of aleksander's mouth in the dark, playing her for the lovesick fool. she shoves back at his chest, forcing herself quickly upright.
her mouth parts on an exhale, suspiciously, tensely quiet. it's one last chance given when she says, careful, each syllable clipped: ) What are you saying?
no subject
without limitations. no distance. the blind fool in her mind wants to insist he means it as she's always thought it — the womb alia and paul had shared, the blood ties that bind them together, the inherent sense of familial togetherness alina will never be privy to. the outsider, watching them through the window of their happiness, a voyeur outside of their home. not — the sickening loop of images alina's mind feeds back to her of alia in paul's bed, sweaty and blissed out in the same sheets he'd promised her children in, just beyond the threshold of the bathroom they share. giggling and joyful, laughing at how stupid she must've been to have never noticed, never suspected.
the aluminum can in her hand creaks, a little, from the steadying force of alina's grip. it's tempting to press him, to tell him to take it back — to tell her to forget it, that he'd lied to test her reaction in reutrn. a cruel prank, at alina's expense, but one she could understand — retribution, maybe, for taking his sister to bed. the other part of her feels sick with it, with the notion of turning a blind eye, thinking of all the times she'd ignored mal tangling himself in women's tents — of aleksander's mouth in the dark, playing her for the lovesick fool. she shoves back at his chest, forcing herself quickly upright.
her mouth parts on an exhale, suspiciously, tensely quiet. it's one last chance given when she says, careful, each syllable clipped: ) What are you saying?