Asterism

30. bella alessandra

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MARLEY once read in her study of Biology that if every strand of DNA in a single human body was unspooled, it could span thirty-four million miles, or the distance from Earth to the Sun and all the way back - sixty-one times.

Another interesting fact: almost all of ordinary matter is empty space, which means if one were to take out that empty space in every atom belonging to every human on Earth - the remaining matter could be packed into the size of one sugar cube.

Billions upon billions of people, of ideas and brain power and love and hope and dreams - could be squeezed into something small enough to be dropped into your morning coffee.

There are a lot of facts like those that Marley still struggles to wrap her head around to this day. There is far too much to still be known about life that even the brightest human minds have barely scratched the surface of all there is to learn. There are so many lingering questions about the massive universe surrounding planet Earth, let alone the mysterious oceans that comprise seventy-one percent of its mass.

Millions of years of human evolution and discovery, yet only five percent of a staggering majority of the Earth - it's water sources - has been seen and charted.

Marley knows she will never get to find out all of the answers she seeks about the world around her in her lifetime, and before she changed for the better that used to bother her. The unknown. The idea that no matter how much she knew - she'd never know it all. She could always be taken off guard, surprised, overwhelmed with new stimuli that would tear her apart the terrible ways it had when she was younger.

Back then, almost every night was a mystery, a new horror.

But, when she first met Aiden Matthews, he was a new stimuli that tore all her old beliefs apart.

While she had known men to be unpredictable, distant, flighty, cruel and selfish - he was reliable, attentive, devoted, kind and selfless.

While she had known those she loved not as armour, but as the cause of even more physical and emotional bruises - Aiden was her armour from her real demons and her imaginary ones, even going as far as to want to protect her from the one person she will never need protecting from: him.

In moments when Marley assumed Aiden would choose self-preservation over her the way her father always had - he had become a human shield when they thought Leo's cabin party had been ambushed by a gunman, he had done whatever he could at the expense of himself to protect her at the trailer park.

While Marley had been used to others reminding her of how weak she was - Aiden had spent hours and hours over several months in his basement gym with her, teaching her how to feel powerful enough to protect herself - with his words of encouragement and with his training.

And, most importantly of all, when Marley had been used to a world where she had always been made to feel mediocre, where rain clouds followed her wherever she went, where she had never been beautiful - Aiden made her feel far from ordinary when he looked at her like she was his whole world, he showed her how to outrun the clouds and bask in the sunshine, and he does not let a single day end without reminding her she is beautiful.

Without trying to make her feel beautiful.

Which, was the understatement of the entire century to describe how he had made her feel tonight.

Marley had only ever felt like her body hated her, like her mind was working against her - but once again Aiden tore apart her old beliefs and gave her new ones. Because here she was with liquid lightning simmering through her veins, through her every limb and down to her very toes.