The flame raked her fingers along the candle's face, leaving deep channels in the wax for melted drops to run down. The candle did nothing, simply stood with her eyes closed and let her eyes drip.
"Love?"
The flame vanished with a cackle, and the candle suddenly began to frantically rub at her face, to smooth out the valleys carved into the wax, but the wax was starting to harden and things were starting to crack and become a mess. She didn't want the lighter to see her like this.
The lighter placed his hand on her shoulder and she flinched. He immediately eased his touch. She squinted her eyes shut. "Love?" he asked gently, "What's wrong?"
She didn't want him to see her, but she let him turn her around to face him anyway. He didn't force her- she let him.
The lighter saw her face, the half-smoothed channels carved into her cheeks, the clumps of wax drops, the mixture of squished softened teardrops and cracked harden wax at the corners of her closed eyes, and he stared.
The candle feared he stared in horror, that he saw at once all the parts the flame had taught her to hate and now wondered how he could have ever loved something that had these parts all along.
The lighter, in a way, did stare in horror, though it wasn't at her, but at her pain. She was hurt, and he wanted so desperately to spare her from that, and so he pulled her towards him and cradled her head against his chest, breathing that it was okay, it'd be all right.
And though the candle was afraid and ashamed, a light in her chest seemed to repeat his words to her while she stood in his arms, and a small part of her believed them.
YOU ARE READING
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Short StoryInspired by Gabriel Picolo's "Icarus and the Sun". The candle's head was already burning with a wild and wicked fire that hissed into and licked at her ear with its tongues of flame as it ate away at the candle's wick. A broken lighter accidentally...
