Inevitable Flaw

Chapter 45: Symbol

My throat cracks as I excrete the word that leaves my tongue in shock. And as soon as the birds accept the faith of its presence in the cold wind, relief slides through the spine of my back, its efforts freeing me of my ankle restraints. I inhale the breath I've been robbed in that tunnel of water. 

Theres so much freedom now, a wondrous ease.  The power relaxes my muscles, one by one.

I watch closely at Adam's posture, listening to everything beyond the loud pulsations that welcome my ears. My voice transcends to the air between us. And in a brief second, its as if the world doesn't exist anymore. There's energy of hope.

His eyes widen, the slightest, but they quickly return to a light curve. A halo of glow finds his face, the brightest of solace. With eyebrows raised in wonder, his upper lip lifts in a fragile slope until his teeth unveil, this stealing me of my thoughts. I remember all the good things in life. Every smile, laughter. He resonates a life of relief, much like my own. Everything is in plain sight. His eyes lighten, and I am staring at a rose of sunrise. Much of his pleasure is suppressed from the way his teeth sink into his lips. 

But its fruitless, the novelty of his emotions have been witnessed. 

And then he turns stone cold, his face paling. He takes a long stride until he's right above me, lips pursed. He painfully shuts his eyes, a loud inhale of air. And then his chest falls. Before swallowing words that appear as rocks of hail. 

"I don't want you to do anything you don't want to." He whispers with stern eyebrows, his heavenly fragrance turning my nose hostage. 

I consummate in the trouble that paints his irises as he tries to understand me. The heaviness they carry terrify me. There's no need to think about my answer. 

"I want this," I return with solidity.

Three words I've been trying to swallow as the tunnel's prisoner. I was free now, I didn't need to abide by its dictation.

His careful smile reacts faster than his eyes. They still contain reality. 

"That has such a melodious tune to it," he mocks, his face remaining its invisible scars. 

I inwardly smile.

And it returns, the inner conflict. They rage in a fire of doubt. A vulnerability that he was immune to.

"I don't deserve you," he repeats shaking his head, his voice panicked as he studies the both of my eyes. Theres a distance he carries, the air cold from its presence.

I remember his eyes streaked in a bright red, the winded aura and distress that wet his whole as he sat crosslegged on the dock. The same fear of losing me to the water was also here now. The exact guilt his eyes reflected as I sobbed by the register following my father's death haunts him now. The murderously strained hopelessness that consumed his caramel hues as I lay in my hospital bed with a wound in my shoulder, his chest being victim to Aasif's violence. It all exists. Now. Every little bit until his knuckles can't control the fury that overtake his hands as they shake. 

I anger at this. The humility pores open the wounds he's supposedly battled with. It feels absurd having these words repeated. They have a long life of suicide attached to them. But they never commit. I wanted to become that murderer. 

"You're so perfect," he takes in my entire face, studying every little detail. Reckless unwinding, he was peeling before me like the petals of summer roses. A melting of man. 

You're so Perfect aren't you?

The smell of liquor returns. But I guard it. Its no more. No more.