Stolen Voices ✓

August 2nd

"I'd go back to the first time I tried to kill myself," she mutters. Elias whips his head around, his face bothered as he matches her gaze. His nose scrunches up as his face pinches together, his eyebrows furrowing. It pains him to hear her talk about this so nonchalantly.

"What, why? Why would you-" he topples over his words, shaking his head. He looks so scared for her that she smiles at him. Her hands cupping his face, her fingertips brushing below his cheekbones, a smile found its way onto her pink lips.

"Because I think that's the first time I felt like someone cared about me, that someone loved me, I guess. My mom, she um- she cried for hours at my side. And I think that's when I knew she loved me or at least cared a little bit, you know," Mara shrugs, nibbling her lip.

Nobody showed any sense of affection towards Mara as a child as they had other, more pressing, things to do. It took her lain in a hospital cot, her hands in restraints as she fought back, for her mother to show her an ounce of worry. Scars on her wrists and words marked on her walls were not even enough to warrant consideration.

"Of course people care about you, I care about you," Elias says firmly, wrapping her up in his arms. He is holding her like he is afraid she is going to disappear. She knows he cares about her, watching him get worked up even if her tone sounds off, her attitude is fluctuating too much. She watches him bite back words she won't like, it is the most solemn gesture of caring she's ever experienced.

"I know you do," she whispers back, kissing his hand.

"Promise me you won't do that again?" He hugs her snugly to him, his sandy hands trailing her skin. Like he is making sure she is there, or something.

He can't see her face, observe as her blazing blue eyes watch the ocean destroy more footprints, erase more people. He doesn't see the way her lips turn down into a grimace, how her eyes flicker with melancholy before turning brighter.

How easily she flips her emotions, turning towards him with a caring smile; as if she hadn't just fought herself mentally.

"Sure," she nodded back, feeling how his shoulders deflated, the tension lost. Deep down, though, she knew she couldn't promise anything.

---

There's a small box on Mara's dresser, a rich blue compartment with a petty-sized key-shaped hole. The key is shoved far under her mattress, where only expert hands can grasp. It is a locked jewelry box. Inside sits a polaroid picture of him and her. Mara always knows that when she messes up, her past will be waiting for her. He will be waiting for her to come running back to him and his demons.

She hasn't thought about that box or even paid it any mind in almost a year. Elias pushes it aside so he can set his library books she stole on her oak dresser. He touches the box with his fingertips, not knowing what gravity lies beneath it. The darkness of that picture she should have burned, but can't because she knows one day she would need him again.

"You shower first, and I'll go in after you," Elias calls out to Mara from the bathroom. He aims the water onto a scolding stream, steam curling into the modest quarters. It clouds over the mirror, making his reflection appear confused, smudged.

"We could always go together," Mara adds with a smirk, walking in with nothing but a towel wrapped around her chest, barely covering her legs. They have come back from the beach, their hair is threadlike with withering ocean water. Any exposed patch of skin has lingering fragments of beach sand.

Elias shakes his head no, a smile on his lips. That is a step farther than what he can handle.

"Whatever," Mara giggles, locking the door behind Elias's departure.