Ocean air, lost laughter like sunshine, cold woods, birdsong, mandarin rinds in snow, wet skin.
A body that remembers how to move, distantly.
“Lili.”A breath falls, heavy with relief. That voice, holding a name. Familiar, meaningful, but never heard like this before. “Are you—Lili, please, say something—”
You?
Slowly, the concept grounds itself, again. You, her, it takes hold in this body.
“Lili,” he repeats. Worried, uncertain with fear. “Lili, please... come back to me, I—”
“I—” The voice in her throat fails, expires, a harsh cough that hurts.
“Here.” Low, soft, firm. A hand on her back, gravity turning. Gently drawing her upright, leaning against a warm body. A glass presses coldagainst her lips. The water first brings relief to her sore throat, then more pain. She winces; in the face resolving across from her, a reciprocal wince catches, like a mirror.
Unable to grasp, her hand slumps against the glass.
“Are you alright?” he repeats, lower than a whisper.
Trying again, she drinks a little more. When it’s too much, she shies away, resting her cheek against his shoulder. “Can I—could I stay here tonight?” she whispers.
A hand in her hair, and there’s the instinct to flinch and shiver, at the same time, but it’s gentle. Threading through her hair, softly letting her head fall back to look up at him.
“Lili, you’re not going anywhere,” he—Aleksandr, and it’s a breath through her chest—says. A furrow in his brow, an expression that’s indistinct, unsure in her hazy vision.
Survival. It rushes over her. The sense of having survived, dragged over the coals of herself, shaped into the scream of her own making. Collided into subspace, and emotional pain, she has never reached. Pushed—pushedherself—and—barely, so barely, almost not—caught.
But the sense that, if he didn’t catch her, he’s picking her up.
Weak. Broken, defeated by her own pain. Some foreign sensation of shaky freedom, trembling. Skin fragile, soul vulnerable. Feeling disjointed from the scene at hand—his urgent concern, the residual pain in her body—because she feels—she registers, with distant shock—emancipated; confusingly serene, drifting through her. Light in the dark. At peace with the presence of it—pain, history, self—for a moment. In this space, she draws one of the first breaths that feels light. New, unknown. So slight, yet still hurting her lungs, her aching throat.
Like she washed up ashore, complete surrender, complete release. Ragged, but her—ragged, but still here. After the storm, the onslaught. Still here.
There’s a strange, complicated peace that’s heavy in her bones.
Lili tries to take another breath. Her throat struggles, unsure of what to do.
“Lili,” he repeats, and it’s—there’s uncertainty. Shapes of sentiments in his eyes that she’s never seen before: caution, intense concern, fear, theunshielded tension of vulnerability, this growing edge of regret. It could cohere into—
“Don’t,” she croaks, at what’s approaching apology in his gaze. She can barely move, she has trouble breathing, but she won’t let him shape that thought. She got something here; something she feared, something she didn’t know she wanted. She won’t let him take that. “Don’t,” she repeats. She lets her head fall forward, resting against his shoulder.
Glass settles against wood, water set down. Arms fold around her, pulling her gently closer into his side. Tears press between their skin. A rough, raw grief swells inside of her. She starts crying so hard she shakes, the sense of incoherent emotional release.
Like she reached the edges of something. Like something finally caught up to her.
A soft hand finds her hair. Soothing, reassuring, a pattern she could fall under.
The space between here and sleep. It slips, closer and closer, a dark that finally holds nothing. As she learns to breathe again, she lets it in.
7
Earnings Season
It’s like breaking water.
Finding breath.
Gentle, for once—drifting out of the distance of sleep. Almost easy, and it’s confusing: the unfamiliar ease of relaxing back into her body, the foreign welcome of her mind.
