it takes her a beat, head tilting to the side slowly. marionâs always been the type to emanate grace in the spaces between each moment â in happiness â in poignance â in sorrow. maybe itâs part of her beauty, part of that elusive quality that made the people around her wish to trail a space or two behind, content just to WATCH. but inside, marion blake has always only felt the gears turning in opposing directions and itâs confused her â a confusion succumbed to only to bloom lotus-like into fresh and unadulterated fascination with all things strange, and a quiet affair with what truth really means. she has always been that wild-eyed child full of unspoken thoughts and unique curiosities.Â
      and akiva is one of the fair FEW whoâs done more than watch. she has touched beneath the armour of silence and settled there with her, so resolutely, silence became a shared construct.Â
     a breath is released slowly, and her hand seeks home at akivaâs elbow, allowing the smooth warmth of her palm engulf flesh. â i couldâve asked. but â it wasnât your job to help fix me. and when you didnât offer â  â  she shakes her head with a half shrug, perhaps a measure embarrassed  â i figured you â had obligations. â  the moment passes, and itâs visible, how she brushes it away with a reinforced SMILE and genuine light dancing in murky green irises. â and look at us now. doing pretty well huh? yeah, you have to see the house. cute little project, the designer is someone i met in brooklyn, we bounced ideas off each other, and well⊠itâs ours. â
Obligations. The word, albeit unintentionally painful, stings like a slap against the skin that Marionâs gentle touch seems to envelope, with just the youngerâs hand meeting the joint of her elbow. No matter the obligations, the NECESSITIES, that Akiva might have found herself facing, she would have  b u r n e d every single bridge they were holding up to cross the one leading her to Marion. The woman standing in front of her, the woman she had known for so many years was the most important aspect of her life. She cared about others in passing, the way you care about acquaintances. People around her could die and fall ill and have awful things eclipse their happiness, but they were pebbles thrown at Akivaâs heart, the gravel to Marionâs boulder. People she had known for her lifetime were the equivalent of coworkers sheâd spoken to once, and those coworkers strangers she passed on the streets of a busy city. She was a ghost in her own hometown, letting those who cared about her ---- friends, family ---- pass through her, taking little bits of the woman with them, because it seemed to her that the more people she SHOULD care about, the less she could care at all.
But not Marion. God, never Marion. Their connection had always been odd. Less babysitter, less companion; a hire-a-friend that turned into quips and smiles that had never been seen coming from Akiva. Even in her childhood, she had been stoic. The Sun family had always matched their name, if not suited it to a fault. Brothers and sisters and parents and cousins were polite and giving and grateful for what they had. Akiva was a nasty raincloud rolling over them, shielding the brightness with shades of dull gray. She didnât know why it was so hard for her to be affectionate, so hard for her to express the emotions banging against her lungs, begging to be spoken into existence. A grumpy infanthood had become a self fulfilling prophecy, the formative years full of colic and crying turned into Akiva always being shoved to the back. She was born a star, shining bright next to her siblings, another symbol of light in a family surrounded by it. But she had burned out before she could toddle. And if every star you saw in the sky was already dead, then whoâs to say she wasnât dark before she was born?
There was a lump in her throat, though its rising was not due to emotion. Or, more truthfully, not any sort of emotion one would expect from seeing a friend come home after a long time away. She wasnât joyful, or nostalgic, or breathing a sigh of a final relief. She was sad. For the first time in a long time, she was sad. It was not a great depression lined with grief, it was not a blip in the system; a bad day  s u r r o u n d e d  by good ones. She was purely sad, the simplicity of the word engulfing her emotions perfectly. How could Marion stand there, eyes bright with the light she brought with her, when Akiva was already poised to shut herself down, the itch of regret winding its way up the curvature of her spine at the prior release of emotion?Â
â   I assumed you would ... have wanted to find your own strength.   â Her explanation is metallic in tone, matching the taste of copper she feels in her own mouth. I would have been there, she wants to say. I would have moved mountains. I would have been the strength. â   And ... I apologise that I did not do more.   â I would have done anything. She spent many a night out in the woods, flashlight illuminating the walk in front of her less successfully than the moon could, mouth forming her best friendâs daughterâs name like it was the last words she would ever speak. But the last words were unknowing, a casual goodbye that she didnât know would be the last one. There was a tentativeness to them that made Akiva feel like it was all a dream. Maybe if she maintained the mindset, she could make Marion feel like that too.Â
She clears her throat, and the taste of pennies slips down her throat and lands in the former feeling of cotton resting in her stomach. Finally, she can breathe. â   I can look whenever youâd like.   â