#eqstre

                                     𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐨𝐨𝐧 they sat in the garden,       in a new bloom of daffodils        &        hyacinths around the plaited blanket that held two half - emptied teacups,        porcelain glimmering in the sunlight.        the same honey glow that bathed them lit sharon's hair into a golden - brown halo from where xerxes laid with his head in her lap,        inundated by the sea of fabrics from her dress.        ❝    miss sharon — you'll make we weep.    ❞

                                     while his voice may have been too saccharine to indicate any genuine earnestness,        the gentle smile on his face made up for it as he tried to meet her eyes     —     tried,        as he had not yet had the heart to tell the young woman about the onset of his blindness,        as he did not want to imagine the sorrow on her expression nor admit his own grief at the realization he would never see her more clearly than what he had already committed to memory.        (    it was,        perhaps a little morbidly,        a small consolation knowing he would not live long enough to forget her face,        but confronting his death meant too confronting the little time they had left.        the waning hours like the turning of a page of a book dangerously close to its end.    )