#gracemarg

Grace can really hear it now. Margaretha, coated by the blanket they share, joined together in a new change of clothes and feeble body heat. A blanket binds them completely: with this to hide her, the older girl has chosen to lean against her shoulder, weighing uneven against her right, the tickle of bobbed hair against her neck. And yet, she finds no fault in this — only that this is Margaretha, careful, wide-eyed, guarded, and this is unlike the defenses she’s used to. Unlike a defense at all, really. She buries herself deeper in the crook of her shoulder, as if she’ll find comfort buried beneath her pale skin, in the thrum of her neck’s veins.

Again, they should have words for that, and it’s a pity they don’t. When friendship seeps through like rain along cotton fabric, stained into something stronger. Lover doesn’t feel right. She doesn’t think she’ll ever love, not like how she should: love is something ravenous, like misplaced expectations, sacrifices and offerings and unquestioning faith, and Grace loves to question. So does her companion, though she imagines Margaretha alongside her, bearing her life, and she thinks her heart would bend and break under that stress.

No, she does not want Margaretha as a companion. Neither a friend, or even a lover. There is no words that can measure Margaretha in her eyes.