THE FISH’S EYES WERE GRAY AND CLOUDY –– NO, WHITE. Like cotton candy with all the color sucked out. Her stomach revolted, even as her appetite thrived. How, Daphne had no clue.
“ Maybe, an hour? Two? ” It was hard to keep track of time –– her phone had gone bye-bye the moment their plane crash-landed, and her watch was lost somewhere within the wilderness they’d walked along the way. Behind her sat a backdrop of all her favorite colors. But she’d turned to face the roasting fish, hating that she couldn’t look at the violet clouds, how the fading sunlight turned the sky molten, BRIGHT with streaks of magenta, and not think of her friends out there –– remnants of light slowly disappearing as the sun ran away from them... It’d get cold soon. Which was why she’d spent the entire morning learning to stoke fire from stone and broken branches until her nailbeds had bleed.
To Erik, she wanted to say, even Beauty Queens needed to survive... but she wasn’t in the mood to fight. Yet. The pressure had been building for a while, and she knew it’d b r e a k like torrential rain, s h a t t e r like a dam if she didn’t find a way to let it out.
Maybe if she didn’t talk to him at all, she could wait until the next morning to find some deserted area on this stupid deserted island to scream until her ears popped and her lungs burned with fire. What Daphne needed was some RELEASE –– to hit something, to argue, to rage. But at the same time, the thought exhausted her.
So she was stuck between each extreme, unable to make the distinction between what she wanted and what she needed.
...Obviously she’d been alone with her thoughts for way too long –– ALONE, even with him there, for too long, and Daphne hated to say it but she wasn’t good alone. Independence only worked when you had someone to fall back on, someone to hold you up. Was that person Erik?
“ And yeah, I did. I should keep this fish to myself since you refuse to believe I can do anything myself–– ” She breathed in sharply, and counted out her breaths. Cool. Be Cool. But what was that anyway? Some kind of 1920s SEXIST bullshit belief that she couldn’t handle her own? Or had Daphne slighted him in some way she couldn’t remember? “ Whatever. Anyway. That dream sounded... intense. Here. You should eat. ”
❛ ♚ ––––– @isiphelo continued from HERE.
