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The minutes flowed, but she hardly sensed time. Everything felt distorted, like she was looking at her life through fractured glass.
she thought about it too hard, the words would become ice. And so Iris didn’t think; she let the words pass through her heart to her mind, down her arms to her fingertips, and she wrote: Sometimes I’m afraid to love other people.
He didn’t answer, but his gaze held hers, and she thought she saw something flicker through him, like a star falling from the cosmos, or a coin underwater, reflecting the sun. Something fierce and vulnerable and very unexpected.
I don’t think you realize how strong you are, because sometimes strength isn’t swords and steel and fire, as we are so often made to believe. Sometimes it’s found in quiet, gentle places. The way you hold someone’s hand as they grieve. The way you listen to others. The way you show up, day after day, even when you are weary or afraid or simply uncertain.
She thought of Carver, but she fell asleep to the metallic song of Roman Kitt’s typing.
But the more she remembered the sight of him returning from his run—all vigor and fire, as if he had drunk from the sky, untamed and unburdened and alive—the more she wanted to feel that herself.
She glared at him—the flush of his cheeks, the mirth in his eyes. He was quite distracting, and she panted, “Are you trying … to tempt me to … press onward, like you’re some … metaphorical carrot?”
“Why would you say that?” Roman replied, his voice gentle but urgent. “Do you think we could live in a world made only of those things? Death and pain and horror? Loss and agony? It’s not a crime to feel joy, even when things seem hopeless. Iris, look at me. You deserve all the happiness in the world. And I intend to see that you have it.”
