Dainty and Dauntless

All falls fatal:

Falling without caution. No protective gear to soften the blow. Ignorant about how far the fall or when to brace for impact. I fell for you. Now my limbs are broken from the crash.

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She fell and loved a person. Natalie loved a boy. Falling could never be so deep. Once was all it took to be immersed in a pit. It was a one-way ticket down and going up again would be tiresome as hell. She wasn't very good at climbing either. Times like these called for calmness and bravery. She had to find out if she was the only one down here. It was pitch black. This hole was super shy with the sunlight. She didn't know how big the hole was but when she took a couple of steps from where she had been it seemed quite vast. The thought of being alone in a huge light-deprived pit was scary. She wasn't sure she was alone and if she wasn't, whether she was safe. 

Why was she down here? She had school, and classes. Could she go back to that please?

"School? Class?" Not her favorites but they were better than darkness.
"Ethan?"

She paused and thought about what had escaped her lips. Had that been a question? To what though?

"Ethan." She repeated, a bit unsure.

Her heart clenched and felt heavy. A feeling of deep sorrow overwhelmed her. She could feel the tears seeping out from her eyes. Her lips were quivering as she began to sob.

"Ethan!", she yelled in between sobs.

Tears kept flowing, uncontrollably and she couldn't bring herself to stop shaking. The feeling was too strong. She gave in to it and squat in the darkness, wiping fruitlessly the river of tears that made her face soggy.
She called once more, and the feeling began to decipher. Her chest was heaving, and eyes were swollen. She kept still in silence, motionless as another feeling ensued deep within her soul. She felt bright, ecstatic and merry.

"Ethan Valer." A smile made its way to her cheeks.

She didn't know why but she was struggling to keep the blushing in control. Natalie was shocked with eyes wide open, and lips parted. She had no idea what was going on. Then she burst out laughing, so much she had to grip her belly. She sighed with helplessness and stared out in the dark.

"Ethan, freaking Valer", she clicked her tongue, "
Oh, dear Lord"

Him, in his existence, she found unmeasurable bliss. She had known happiness before and had gotten her fair part of it in her life, but in this part of life, the small portion of it that Ethan existed in made her idea of happiness a huge mystery. Ethan defined happiness in Natalie's heart. It was a tall boy, bland personality, a smarty-pants with an appearance that made her heart thump one beat less per minute.

The pit and reality were connected. She dared not utter his name or sob uncontrollably. Words? She knew none from him.

Do eyes speak, ever? 

Natalie spoke with glances intensely and shyly as her eyes twinkled with curiosity and stealthiness. She questioned countless times and nervousness; excitement pulled the strings. From the sudden look aways, the double takes, the cold-shoulders, weird postures, the magnetic sweep past each other to the pause after locking eyes.

She wasn't sure anymore.
Do Ethan's eyes speak, ever?
Their tone was faint and timing inconsistent. It was hard trying to register something from him.

"Hey", they seemed to say the first time, interested in conversation.
But there was always another the next second almost immediately, as if to further the distance between them.

"Oh look, something right behind you is more interesting to me than you."
Natalie loved playing detective, but this was the hardest case yet. 

She sucked at figuring out Ethan Valer.

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