Stolen Voices ✓

December 25th

December 25th:

This particular morning is golden, the milky sun flowing through all the open windows, lighting up the living room they relax in. The fireplace is in the background, a stuffy warm surrounding them as Mara sits cross-legged on the floor. A hand-woven blanket draped over her shoulders, and freshly brewed coffee heating her hands. The overpowering aroma of it attacks her senses, sleep missed by the jitters of Christmas morning.

Elias rests next to her, torn wrapping paper like a crime scene around their feet. The necklace he'd bought her, a small turquoise pendant, hangs around her neck. Its vibrant color even brighter as the sunlight reflects off of it, her fingers messing with it aimlessly.

The comfort of light conversation fills the silence as Elias reached for one of the last two presents under the tree, the rest around them. Kissing the top of her shoulders, watching her flip the box-shaped present in her hands, trying to guess what it could be.

"I tried to wrap it in the middle of the night," he scratches the back of his neck bashfully, Mara giggling softly at the horrible wrapping job. Strips of tape cover most of its exterior, holding pieces of different paper together. Like scraps of every wrapping paper they owned, Mara loves him more for it.

Instead of taunting him, she places a chaste kiss on his lips, leaning back so she can tear it apart, sensing his eyes on her. She never fancied people watching her open presents. The impassive look that is perpetually on her face makes them feel as if she doesn't like it.

But with Elias, she doesn't mind the burning feeling of his eyes burning into her, a puppet to his strings. The soft smile, waltzing on her lips as her chipped green nails dig into the paper, ripping apart the tape.

There, sitting in her hands, is a brand new copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. Its pages smell unspoiled, like crisp paper and dried ink. Tears prick her eyes as she drags her fingers across the words. Such a simple gift, anyone else may have scoffed at it.

"That's the book you stole from me the first day we met," he points towards it, glancing up at her through hooded lashes. "I had to check it out under my name and force myself to read it, just to understand your fascination."

"You remember that?" She mutters with melancholy in her tone, looking up at him with every ounce of affection she can pool buried in her mare irises. They are glassy with unshed tears that prick her ducts, biting her lip to stop herself from crying. It's not that deep, she tried to stress to herself.

But to a person like Mara, it is everything. To believe someone cared enough about her to remember such a minuscule detail in time when even her own family forgot her birthday. That he even read it just so he could understand a piece of her, without the knowledge he'd ever see her again. The notion that she had left a big enough imprint on him for him to even acknowledge.

"Of course I remember," he smiles, poking her sides. "I remember a lot about you, Mara, believe it or not. Even before I really knew you, I paid attention enough to know a little bit about you, just in case you wanted to know me too."

Elias had been captured by Mara from the start and it wasn't just one aspect of her that lured him in. Not her vulgar language or her tantalizing his muteness, but the way she embraced that little bit of chaos in her while ignoring his. Making him feel the most average he had in awhile. Their interplay was no more than ten minutes, yet almost a year later, he can still treasure it in fine detail. The snow-dust in her hand, the pitiful sound of her singing.

"You're kinda weird," she had said after a minute, smiling softly as she took a step towards the fiction section, "it's cute."

"I can be cute too," she laughs, forging her sorrow enough she can watch him open his present from her with clear vision. Setting his heartwarming present aside to grab hers, equal to destructive wrapping paper.