Stolen Voices ✓

August 2nd

*Mara talks about some of the stuff she's done in her manic state, in the past tense. It can be considered triggering so I'm putting this here as a precaution. Stay safe loves.

August 2nd:

Mara will catch herself comparing her features to that of other girls. Lounging on the beach blanket draped over the warm sand, she watches girls with clear backs, girls with curves she craves, dive into the rocky waves. She has fading acne scars on her shoulders, her limbs awkward lengths. Her legs are too long, her skin is too faint, her hair untidy.

She has inflicted scars on her wrists to stop the voices. Which, on a bad day, she will be ashamed of. Ashamed of that damaged piece inside her that doesn't work quite right.

She will hide the parts of her she didn't like behind flowy sundresses and sleeves. She is at the beach under the heated sun, wrapped up in a blanket because she feels flawed.

Then she watches Elias trace her oddities as if they are the uttermost attractive thing in the world to him. His focus on where she feels her ribcage was too wide, or her bones are too sharp, Elias makes her feel pure. Where others stare judging, their eyes brandishing, Elias will stare as if she is his stars.

She feels beautiful under his caramel gaze, sweet as nectar. She gives him an equal amount of respect because Elias will feel vulnerable as well. She will trace the dips of his frame, the outlines of his brawny muscles. She makes him feel powerful, beautiful. Because to her, he is the utter description of the word.

He is all she could ever ask for and everything she doesn't deserve.

Their fibrous hairs are peppered with sand. The smell of the salty ocean brands on their skin. She watches as different people strolled along the edge of the shoreline, their footprints digging into the saturated sand. Then a tide will come through and erase the footprints as if they never existed.

How so easily the tides can erase something as if it was never there.

"If you could have any wish in the world, what would it be?" Mara asks, tilting her face up towards the sunlight. She lets its melting rays warm her body as she settles into her skin, into her blemishes.

"I'd wish to be a kid again," Elias returns softly, moving from lying next to her to a small patch of sand at her feet. With a children's bucket in hand, he crawls towards the better, wetter seashore.

"Why?" Mara sits up on her elbows, watching him pack sand into the blue plastic bucket. Creating a sandcastle, like he's done so many times in his youth. Careful to keep it considerably away from the rolling tide.

He'd made his empire too close once, scoured away by the waves. He'd sobbed for hours, tears trickling down his face as the current sent away his hour-spent happiness. How something so majestic could take away his creation without responsibility.

Elias glances at the glimmering ocean, shaking his head. That was the first time he realized that something so pure as the ocean could come and destroy your happiness with a single stroke of its touch.

"Because the world is brighter, more innocent. I can believe that people don't want to hurt me, that everyone has some good," he explains, looking at her sadly. His eyes are lighter under the sunlight, his skin golden under its wonderment. He doesn't have a shirt on the first time Mara has seen his bare chest.

She isn't complaining. In fact, she feels smug. Satisfied that Elias is hers, and she is his.

"What about you?" Elias questions, tipping his bucket over in the sand, watching the castle take form. His fingers brush around the edges, patting down pieces that don't stick. Mara watches with a sad smile as the muscles in his back constricted, his leg brushing against hers each time he moves. Silently reminding her that he is here.