TO LIE WITH MIDNIGHT ROSES

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XAVIER

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The air blows a cool breeze as silence washes over us and a few minutes pass before Renessa speaks.

"You think I am going to just tell you, Xavier? You think I want to?"

"Absolutely not," I shake my head at her, "But I need you too. I need to understand you, understand all of this."

"I don't even understand it myself," She sighs.

"You made glass explode, you nearly destroyed Roman's study. I need an explanation."

She looks at me and I wonder what she is thinking as she sucks in a sharp breath, tugging her jacket in tighter around her waist. She begins walking away from me and then she mumbles under her breath.

"Are you coming or not?"

I decide to not tell her she is going in the wrong direction, instead, I find myself beside her, gently placing a hand on her elbow and spinning her around. I begin walking and she says nothing but follows. Letting go of her, she lets out a deep breath and then she speaks.

She tells me about her parents, reluctantly, but she tells me about how she used to get so angry as a child, especially when it stormed and sometimes she would break things. Items she would never touch, things she didn't even think about and yet they would explode, shattering into pieces as her parents watched.

 She explains how she could feel the energy shift when different people walked into a room, she could feel the rise of the sun and the fall of the moon, it lingered in her fingertips and jolted in her veins.

She tells me how she could feel the wind through her body, the thunder and lightning in her mind and how she still does. The rain she says has always managed to dampen her own eyes with droplets and how heavy grey clouds would fog her memory— all of it affecting her emotions.

She continues, telling me about her mother, the blue moon, the tingling sensations in her fingertips, the waves of energy surging through her body. The lightbulb, the shadows, the telescope and the clinking of glass bottles. There's a crunching she mentions, a connection of flesh and bone between a heavy-soled boot. A blouse and brown hair merging into one with the soil and then a fire.

She tells me everything as we walk through the trees, slowly making our way back up the mountain and I'm silent. I listen to her, uninterrupted as she speaks and I think she's grateful for that because she stops and looks at me. Tears are covering her eyes and they glisten as the sun sets, illuminating her honey-tan skin and I think... I think she is beautiful.

She stops and I wonder if she's mad for a moment but then she smiles. A small smile, a soft curl at the corners of her lips and I just stare at her. Unable to find the words, unable to express a proper emotion as I feel things arise I haven't felt in ages.

"Don't look at me like that," I mutter.

She is staring up at me with heavy, sleepy eyelids. Thick eyelashes lazily blinking over her pretty, pretty eyes. My mouth goes dry, words no longer forming in my mind. She inhales a deep shaky breath and I wonder if I had ruined this, whatever this moment was.

"Like what?" She asks.

"Like that."

"I'm not looking at you like anything."

"Whatever you say," I smile, wondering now when throughout this conversation had I become...soft?

Shaking my head, I also try to shake off the idea of her being pretty. She was a storm, inside her mind and inside her body and she was only just at the beginning of figuring out who she was and who she is. Besides, she had a boyfriend... she supposed.