Matters of the Heart

Heart is but a Tissue

"Hmm... the stars are slowly growing dim by the days." Even his speaking voice carried an echo of melody to it.

Or maybe it's just a defect of my ears.

"I'm surprised they haven't receded at all just yet." Lyra voiced her own observation.

"True, we should indeed salvage the little bit of all that's left." Lyra was unsure if it was a statement about the stars, or a mockery of her disgratitude at not salvaging the things she had left.

She could feel his head near hers. His hair tickled the outline of her ear and his comforting warmth radiated off him in waves to enclose her in its safety. He was wearing the same yellow bomber jacket that she loved so much on him. Their heads touched each other, their positions mirroring while their feet faced the opposite directions.

Lyra turned her head to look at his face. The scar adorning his left cheek greeted her sight and she felt an itch in her hand to run her fingers over it. The scar that she so admired; one of the many peculiar little details of his that she would often find herself musing over. She adored those imperfections with a manic passion.

Under the dimly lit blanket lay two youths lost in their own contemplations with the boy admiring little of what was left of the twinkling lights, and the girl admiring the boy beside her. To her, he was also a star on earth, because like those in the sky, he was also unique and scarce and perhaps if he dimmed there would be no other in his succession.

She found her arm tiring out after a few minutes of hanging in the air. Before Lyra could lower it to her side, his cool slightly larger palm engulfed her warm one entwining her fingers in their familiar safety. Lowering the glued hands to his eyes, the boy admired their conjoined palms with the curiosity of a child. His thumb traced butterfly patterns over her pulse, eyes latched in extreme possessiveness over the sensation of her rhythmic throbbing veins.

"Lyra?"

"Hmm?"

"What's wrong? What's weighing you down? Won't you tell me?" His gentle voice was like the cooing a mother does to her newborn and involuntarily the vulnerable tissue inside her chest found itself softening and breaking a little more at that tone.

The lilt in his voice worked like a trigger to the mist in her mind. She felt clouds looming over the dreary sky of her heart, water threatening to let loose from the grey condensations.

Lyra attempted to tug her wrist back to herself, his continuous patterns of thumb tracing making it harder for her to breathe, to remain calm, to keep the latch locked on the gates of her floodworks.

"Lili..." A slight inflection in those two syllables and a gentle tug from his side to keep her wrist pinned to his eyes.

That was all it took to clear the mist over her raging heart. Clouds let loose and little droplets drizzled on the desolate land of her scratched organ. Drops adorned her eyelashes like dewy pearls on the blades of grass in a rainy monsoon day.

The drizzle was light and momentary, not yet turning into a downpour. The drops clung to her lashes as an adornment for the time being waiting for the right moment to slide down the tresses of her cheeks and take away her pain with them.

"Lili... please say something."

There it was... that name again: the one thing that blossomed a smile on her face simultaneously sending a crack to her heart.

Yes. She was his Lily. As was he, her White Rose.

The association had come to her naturally. She could not describe the reason why she chose that specific color and that specific flower. It was just his face and his whole self that reminded her of the fragility and tranquility of a white rose. She often wished she could have chosen a more lively color, something signifying life and blood like red, and not eerie and solitary like white. Perhaps her unconscious self could have premonitions into the future. Perhaps this was why she had so naturally associated him to white... to light... to eeriness... to heaven... to death.