Stolen Voices ✓

April 9th

"It says to start with the alphabet." She whispers, her lips close to Elias's ears. His heartbeat races slightly at her soft voice vibrating through his eardrums. Her warm breath fans over his neck and cheek, her lips smell of the mint gum she just discarded.

They sit back from each other, Elias holding his hands out in front of his face. They both ignore the closeness as Mara skims over the first paragraph on the page.

"A." Mara states, forming her hand into a fist. Elias copies her gesture, smiling because this is an easy one. He can remember this one easily since he has an a in his name.

"Okay," Mara smirks, laughing as Elias puffs his chest, "B." Her fingers look like she's showing him the number four, although all her fingers are pressed tight together. Elias copies her movements but spreads his fingers apart.

"No, no," Mara giggles, pressing his fingers together with her own. "Like this," she whispers, looking to Elias. His eyes were so close to hers, so wide, spewing out rivers of turmoil.

The brown of his eyes shrinks as his pupils dilate. She's so close she can make out the light brown flecks around the rims in his irises. She never noticed them before.

All the same he's lost in her blue irises. They grow lighter under the bright fluorescent lighting. Her eye shape is sharp, like most of her features, accentuated with a dark brush of  liquid eyeliner. Her eyes flick back and forth between his. Waves of it's ocean, crashing the shore.

Elias lets out a staggered breath as he flicks his eyes back down to the open book. Mara does the same, both ignoring the heated feeling that burns just below their skin. They go back to the words, working through the pages.

Their laughing fills the small room, this easy moment caught on the camera in the corner. They are both enjoying themselves, letting go as they learn a new sense of normal.

After an hour or so, they have the basic understanding of the new language. They'd memorized the alphabet and even came up with their own versions of the speech. Little gestures that only them two will understand. Their own shared secret.

Each of them smiles as Mara shoves the book into her bag, her mind full of enough learning for the night. Ignoring, once again, to check it out before leaving. Elias gives her a look, his eyebrow quirked as his lips turn upwards, but she simply ignores it. Skipping through the glass doors, hit by the gust of wind.

It is dark outside as they step into the hazy air. The air is humid today, with the aftermath of the rainfall hours beforehand. The concrete is a shade deeper, the grass damp with its residue. It smells of the tempest, a thick, smoggy scent that attacks their senses. It is almost strangling, but Mara finds it comforting as she breathed it in.

She loves the rain, something about its beautiful chaos. She feels like a storm herself, brewing behind the clouds before she burst. The aftermath of her rage, left with an imprint of water droplets. And air that strangled people's windpipes surrounding her.

"I bet I can beat you to that pole," Mara giggles, throwing her bag over her shoulders. It is weighed down by the book and everything else she carries, but it isn't too bad.

She points towards the lamppost, only a few meters away from where they stand behind the doors. Elias finishes locking up the library with a click, throwing the key in his pocket.

"I doubt it," Elias signs, his fingers moving. It is erratic and not the correct wording, but Mara understand nevertheless. Smirking, she grounds her feet into the ground before pushing off of the concrete sidewalk, Elias doing the same, matching her strides. Her toes tap against the ground as Elias trails right on her heels.

They continue this, past each lamp post flickering a soft glow of light. They follow that illumination as their guide, making it down blocks of streets. At some point, they were huffing for a suffocated breath, Elias leaning against the pole holding up the light. Mara leaning against him, her shoulders sinking all her weight into her side.

He doesn't move her. Instead, he wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer into him. They have become more comfortable with each other, Elias breaking down some of his barriers in the few months they've known each other.

These past few days, weeks actually, Elias has felt like he was living. Here, laughing with the girl who burst through the library doors after hours as if she owns it. His therapist was right. After a few more appointments with her and writing in his notebook, the weight is being lifted.

He, of course, still has some bad days where it takes an extra effort to get out of his bed. But the good outweighs the bad, noticing the felicitous pattern right away. Elias had been right, saying Mara was an enigma, his enigma.

An enigma, by definition, is a person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand. What Elias doesn't understand was how much of a hold she has on him.

She is a composition of that yellow crayon that only continues to fill up more of the page as days go by. All the same, Elias keeps Mara in check even if he doesn't know he's doing it. She is able to have fun with a sense of stability all the while. Her friends, the ones Elias hasn't met yet, are all bad influences and unintentionally fuel her bad habits.

They feel she could experience life without those barriers, her meds, on her mind. And it feels good, to Mara, because she is extra happy when she goes off them. When she becomes manic, she is almost numb to pain, even seeking it in some instances just to test her will.

Off her meds met her downfall, but Elias doesn't encourage that. Truthfully, he doesn't know about her condition, but Mara wants to stay sane. For him, he won't see her as the girl with a current of problems, but a girl with endless dreams and aspirations. 

Neither of them know it, but they are each other's saviors.

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Authors Note:

Elias is learning sign language so they can communicate a little more.

Thoughts?

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- ❤ nia

Edited 3/31/22