Carried Away

She braced herself for him to be upset with her, but no scolding words came. He was quiet, and she felt anxious as she waited to see what his reaction might be, but also comforted, even if only a little, by his presence. When he moved closer, she stayed perfectly still, trembling sightly at his touch. The gentle gesture was almost enough to make her emotions boil over again. Her eyes stung and she sucked in a shaky as she leaned into him.

When he did speak, it was only to comment on the flowers she’d been given. They were his favorite and she was suddenly much more glad that she had them. "You can have them. As a thank you for everything you’ve done for me." Her voice was quiet. She had planned to try eating the flowers like she’d been instructed, but Indigo deserved them more than she did, and if they were his favorite she felt like he should have them.

She wanted to tell him what was bothering her, but even now she had already lost the words she’d used before. And she didn’t feel like she had accurately described everything to the stranger. It was a hard thing to explain. She had everything she had always thought she wanted. A safe place to call home, and someone that actually cared about her. Maybe it wasn’t a lot, or as much as she may have had if she’d been a better daughter to her mother, but it was more than she had before. So why did she still feel this way? Why did she feel the need to pull away whenever he wasn’t near, while being able to fall into his embrace as soon as she saw him again? It didn’t make any sense, but he deserved some sort of explanation. Surely he would be able to see she was upset.

She took a deep breath, pawing at the snow as she tried to think of how to begin without sounding too foolish. "This… might sound strange, but do you ever feel almost more alone and isolated the more you think about the people who care about you? I just… When I’m alone, I start going through these mental spirals where I think about you and how lucky I am that I found you, but then it makes me think about how I got to you, and everyone and everything I lost along the way. Then I start to wonder where I went wrong before, and how I could have been better, how I could have been good enough to have not been left alone like that in the first place. But then I start to worry that maybe… Maybe you won’t really be here forever..." The words tumbled out of her mouth too quickly, and she wasn’t sure if any of it made sense, or if she seemed absolutely crazy.

"I was supposed to die, you know? That’s what my mom expected, and probably wanted, when she left me. It’s pure luck that I survived long enough to meet you, and if I hadn’t I definitely wouldn’t have survived this endless winter. I feel like I cheated death, and I’m not really supposed to be here. I keep coming back to that and I can’t seem to get past it. I don’t know… I can’t explain it, but ever since I really thought about it, everything just feels wrong somehow." That still didn’t seem right, but it was as close to an explanation as she could get. Her feelings were far more complicated than even she could understand, but maybe he would be able to help her sort through it. Or maybe it was something that she would grow out of.