Her voice is so soft I almost don’t hear it.
I shrug once because that’s easier than saying yes, I remembered every word you said, every small thing you offered me like it was nothing.
“You said you made wishes on them.”
Her eyes sweep the field.
The wind catches strands of her hair and lifts them off her cheek. The bruise there has started yellowing at the edges. I still want to kill him every time I see it.
For a second I think she might cry.
I don’t know what I’ll do if she cries.
But then she hands me the helmet and walks forward one slow step, then another.
And then she starts running. Not hard. Not far.
Into the field like something in her finally forgot to be afraid for half a second.
I stand there with both helmets in one hand and watch her go.
The grass brushes her legs. Yellow flowers bend around her boots. She turns once, looking over the spread of it all like she can’t decide if it’s real.
Then shelaughs.
I feel it low in my chest before I fully hear it.
A real laugh. Breathy and startled like it slipped out by accident.
She lifts her arms.
Spins.
Her shirt rides up a little at her waist and sunlight hits her face full on.
Fuck.
I’ve seen her angry. Wet. bruised. Shaking. Defiant in my bed and vicious in my kitchen and half-feral with want under my hands.
None of it touches this.
Her smile breaks across her face like something holy and reckless at once, and those brown eyes go molten in the light, caramel and gold and alive enough to make the whole world around her look dim.
Bozhe Moi.
That smile.
It hits me harder than any bullet ever could.
She turns again, arms still out, head tipped back, and for one impossible second she looks young. Not naive. Not soft exactly, but free in a way I’ve never seen on her.
I drop the helmets onto the bike seat and go to her.
Fast.
Before I can think too much about why my chest feels split open.
She hears me too late. Turns just as I reach her, and I catch her around the waist with both hands and lift her clean off the ground.
