[ It comes out in halves. Half sardonic, half desperate. Seeking an answer, not a rhetorical question, but perhaps one he cannot give her. Perhaps he's at a loss as much as she is. Because he looks it.
He offers to run her a bath. It feels nostalgic, familiar. This is how they would solve things. How he solves them. A bath.
She doesn't have to look to know she is causing him pain. Rejecting his touch. She can't quite bear that either. Hates that she is causing hurt when hurt is now her constant companion. ]
Okay.
[ A defeated whisper. Doesn't occur to her that he might carry her, not until she's already moving in the direction of their bathroom.
She lingers at the vanity while he messes with the taps — staring at herself, feeling peculiar in such light colors, out of heavily dyed fabrics of black and mourning. Methodically, she undresses herself, a moment's hesitation before she sheds the final layer to stand naked in front of her reflection, and him.
It's not the first time, but it feels like a first time. The first since she was wed to another man, and then lost that man. ]
no subject
[ It comes out in halves. Half sardonic, half desperate. Seeking an answer, not a rhetorical question, but perhaps one he cannot give her. Perhaps he's at a loss as much as she is. Because he looks it.
He offers to run her a bath. It feels nostalgic, familiar. This is how they would solve things. How he solves them. A bath.
She doesn't have to look to know she is causing him pain. Rejecting his touch. She can't quite bear that either. Hates that she is causing hurt when hurt is now her constant companion. ]
Okay.
[ A defeated whisper. Doesn't occur to her that he might carry her, not until she's already moving in the direction of their bathroom.
She lingers at the vanity while he messes with the taps — staring at herself, feeling peculiar in such light colors, out of heavily dyed fabrics of black and mourning. Methodically, she undresses herself, a moment's hesitation before she sheds the final layer to stand naked in front of her reflection, and him.
It's not the first time, but it feels like a first time. The first since she was wed to another man, and then lost that man. ]