unraveled

flirts and feelings

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          Someone walked up to her, with light steps. She didn't have to turn to know that it was the boy as he perched on the railing next to her with his arms crossed and his hair tousled. She checked off priorities one and two and felt guilty that they hadn't been fulfilled in their ordering. His brown hair fell into his brown eyes that had come to become her home. They were her fireplace, her cot, the tea kettle, and the armchair - all in the warm, swirling green and blue of his eyes. His face was blank but she could see the quiet joy. His posture betrayed his love for the waters that wasn't much different from her own.

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied though she was feeling better than okay.

He nodded and looked out to the landscape.

"How long was I out?" she asked.

          "Two days," he said without looking at her but she could see his unhappiness about it. She could see his tired form worried about her, pacing back and forth. She didn't apologize because she couldn't blame her body for giving out, it was only reasonable even if it worried him.

          She didn't know what to say instead so she laid her hand on top of his and squeezed and hoped he understood. The relax in his shoulder told her he did.

"Did you eat?" she asked, her motherly instincts kicking in as soon as she was done being a sister.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Did you eat well?" she asked because there was a difference in eating a crumb and eating a loaf of bread and she suspected he often did the former instead of the latter and called it "eating."

"Nia, maybe I'm not the one you should be fussing about," he replied.

          Nia didn't reply because it was true. She felt good, but her body was drained. An unwelcome, little girl inside her wished for an unwelcome wish for someone to be there to take care of her. She had the boy, of course. But... sometimes she wished for ... someone else. Someone who didn't feel obliged to care because of the bonds of family. Someone who chose to care. She chided herself, I have the boy, that's all I need. But she knew that wasn't her real comfort. Her real comfort was that the boy had her and thus had something even if it wasn't what he exactly needed. She had spent her whole life being there for him so much so that it felt as if he had stopped being there for her. It wasn't the truth but it felt that way. Her mother's voice rose from the grave in her head, Nia, feelings aren't true. They are bubbles meant to be bursted, not lived in. Her mind threatened to ignite the thread of memories of her mother and as ready as she was to embrace the past in solemnity, she felt herself reaching for a distraction, something to chase away the bitter past, the proof of how she had failed and the nearby feeling that she was one faulty step away from failing again.

"Where is everyone else?"

"You saw the rooms below the deck?" he asked.

She nodded.

"That's where they are."

"All of them?"

"It doesn't seem like much space but," he shrugged, "we're all on board."

Her mouth was already forming words as her brain struggled to catch up as she asked, "What about...?"

          The look in his eyes shifted, taking on a graver and conspicuous tone. "Yeah, what happened back there?" he asked, turning around so his back was to the water with his elbows pulled back to rest on the railing.