there is a healthy distance between them that is still intimate, both spines kissing either side of the barn door that shelters them; not physically required to do so but needed nonetheless, is if convinced their strength alone could hold the barrage of corpses surging through the door had their whereabouts been discovered. the faint, guttural moans of an unseen enemy carries on the winter breeze, the mindless drag of fetid feet against the gravel by limbs that could barely sustain them. it whispers through the thin gap in the door. the sound is both distant and present, a foreboding hum that needlessly reminds them that safety is never guaranteed and danger was a mere pin-drop away. they breathe in a shallow but careful rhythm, a fragile cadence of which the maintenance of seems to grow in difficulty. a louder breath would no doubt shatter the brief moment of peace they had found themselves sequestered. silence persists for a long time before she breaks it, less like snapping a twig but more so the gentle ushering of waves ashore. whenever she spoke, she always reminded him of gentle, earthy sounds even when unanticipated, he was never spooked. the doe never runs at the rustle of the breeze, only raises her head in sinless curiosity. to her right, jake is quiet a moment more, face turned up to the roof to gaze upon an indifferent god. his eyes count the cracks in the forsaken wood and for a minute he's back at church, face pressed against the foot of the altar by a hand on his neck that acts only in god's stead. the pews are empty but the room feels full, he hears the words repent but he's ten years old. he thinks he was taught to fear god than love him from that first breath, the water filling his lungs as he is bathed clean and born anew. chest seizing and eyes burning. he is still drowning. he was always drowning. this is just a barn. the dim light sketches the edges of his expression in shadow, deep, charcoal lines that both age him and ground him in a long-forgotten memory, though little is revealed. he had always been difficult to read, even before, every painful sting of his youth held inside until the cracks in his facade began to splinter into fragments, the loss of those that had likely ruined jake landed him a bittersweet defeat. how do you carry on, when everything you know is gone?
‘for a second, i thought so too.’ jake says, his voice worn with resignation. the taste of fear is yet to leave his mouth, bitter and dry with the repeated rise and fall of his chest. breaths ebb and flow as his pulse begins to slow but his mind remains restless, flicking through pages of everything and nothing all at once. he shifts uncomfortably beside her, pressing his shoulders a little harder against the barn door. jake feels the strength of the wood push back, solid against his own back; the resistance it provides feels something like his own resolve, steady in the face of decay. his gaze drifts to a spot on the floor, something meaningless he can pour a little of himself into. he thinks of the ranch, unkept promises and broken faith. the hope that had been buried in the dust of home's carcass. how the numbness that pain acquired had changed the shape of his face, hollow and distant a blank canvas of untouched features that told no tale beside resentment and fatigue. but being beside her, despite everything they had each seen and done, that divine miracle of even seeing her again coaxes him towards a truth he had long suppressed; that maybe (and only maybe) there might be something left here for him after all. ‘and i also thought i don't know maybe i was meant to. like, maybe i wasn't worth saving. that it was the only thing that could make everything right, if it meant that you would be okay and you could do everything you were supposed to do with them.’
