By: Hunter M.
I watch her breathing. It's so shallow my hand occasionally reaches up so my fingers are just under her nostrils. A soft breeze brushes against the skin and for the moment I'm satisfied. She's shivering and we have every blanket in the house compiled over the two of us, but it does nothing but suffocate us.
Even now I find her beautiful. She always grows so much thinner during the winter but we only have weeks of it left and once the air outside starts to warm, so does my Seally. Her shoulder's are so pointy and her collar bones jut from her like a thick coat hanger embedded under her skin.
She wimpers softly and I think that I've held her too tight against me. I know she gets uncomfortable easily and I've woken her before when I try a little too hard to warm her fragile form. I look to her face and notice that her eyes are moving around, watching the screen under her thin, purple spidery-viened lids. She wimpers again, this time louder and her knee jerks itself into my thy. "Adrian. Adrian. Adrian." She sounds closer to tears, like a sob is slamming against her constricting throat but she will not relent. "Adrian."
This time I reach out and lay my big hand against her face. It covers the majority of her head and with a sickening thought that twists the muscles in my stomach so that the bile rises to the cusp of my throat, I realize that all I'd have to do is shift so that all my weigh rested on my hand- on her head- and I could kill her. So, so fragile.
"Seally." I whisper, and it comes out gravely and thick with the lapsed silence. After a second and two more wild twiches of her body, her eyes flutter open and her lips part. A shaking intake of breath fully arouses her; her pupils shrink back to their normal size.
"Adrain." It's all she says before curling herself into my chest. I hold her close enough as to not crush her and she let's me without protest. "It was of him again." She says after a while breaking the silence like shattering a glass plate. It startles me so much that the hand that was combing through her hair involentarily clenches, and I have to apologize and kiss the spot where I pulled multiple times. Not because she was upset but because hurting Seally is like spitting into the face of God and then laughing about it.
"He's gone." I promise her. It's all I'd ever tell her. She doesn't need to know that as soon as she fell asleep the night the boy in the wheelchair gourged her face, I went out and killed him. No, 'killed him' is too loose a term for what I did. I murdered him-- murdered him to the upmost degree and without submission because the act was out of blind fury and passion. Murdering the boy would never keep him from entering her dreams, though. It won't take away the scar on not only her face but her already withering mind. If murdering myself took that from her, I'd do it in a heart beat. Though I know I never could because without me, Seally would be dead in a matter of days.
I feel more than see her head nod against my chest, her nose gazing slightly over the hollow of my throat and her thick brown mane tickles my chin. Her head tilts up and her silver eyes meet my onyx ones. By the tilt of her lashes and slight slit of her mouth, I know this is her silent way of asking for a kiss because if there's one thing Seally hates, it's asking for things- like help.
Like most our kisses, they're short yet lingering and the chapped skin of our lips barely brush against eachother. During the day, it's filling. Just a little pick-me-up, a little hope and encouragement. At night, though, when the moon's blaring in the dark, freckled expanse, those kisses tend to warp into something more dark, passionate, lustful, and full of restrained desire. Only on warmer nights do we give in, but I know Seally won't be falling back asleep, and I can only sleep when she does.
The blankets are suffocating but in the darkness, I breathe in the breath that Seally pants into my mouth. It's enough. It's always enough. And really, all you truly need is enough to survive.
Author's Note: Another The Market story! Yayayayayayay! God, I love writing these. They're so angsty and strange and dark. It's a short one, but Adrian isn't a boy of many words. He's more of the silent brooding type who demonstrates his passions through actions. Hope you liked it, cause God knows I love writing these.
