"How can you speak of this so casually, in one breath?" she said, lips trembling.
"Because they belong together, in one breath."
Her entire being bristled with denial.
He continued. "Have you not experienced how the deepest truths lie where you have the strongest resistance?"
He evaluated her silence, a chimera of mystification, frustration, and defiance, then smiled, knowing how to her, he was at his most infuriating when he spoke the truth. He also knew she wanted nothing more than scream at him, punch him or run away. Or all three, in that order. Yet, he would persist. He had long ago vowed to only ever push her deeper, never let her graze on the surface for longer than a short resting period craved, and especially pull her down into the depths with him, when she tried her best to close her eyes, or run the other way. As she did, right now. The little growling sounds she tried to hold back were utterly endearing to him.
"I don't buy it," she said. "I mean, yes, but sometimes resistance is there because something is straight out wrong."
Ah. She was trying to set fire to and go down with this ship.
"Let's try a thought experiment, then."
"Fine. What?"
"Argue for it, not against."
She glared at him. "That's your thought experiment?"
"Yes."
Oh by the pantheon, she hated him. He would not be so easily dismissed though, as she had learned the hard way. With him, the best way out was often through. "Fine," she whispered. "Fine. You said that ruin and love ... you said that something about how the romantic aspects of love are not where love really shines, but when you let yourself be utterly ruined and shattered by love, that it does."
He tilted his head. "Close enough."
"I think I get where you're coming from, or what you're trying to say, but that kind of love... the one that shatters your soul, it's a monster. It is the monster in the darkness. It's what won't let you breathe at night. It's what won't let you sleep.
It's what holds your heart every day, the bits you have left, squeezing it, crushing it, preventing it from living, pumping, it holds down its wings with cold iron limiting your --"
"Argue for it," he reminded her gently.
"There's no way."
"Hah. You said you get where I'm coming from. Where am I coming from, then?"
"Ugh. I think because if you let yourself get shattered, maybe that's where you learn how huge it really is? What it can be? That only by knowing the true darkness of something, you can fully enjoy the light of it?" She grimaced a little. Neither of them were especially fond of or truly believed in darkness and light dualities. Still, the imagery worked. "Or... like... this thing of how you have to go through shit to really appreciate what you've got, and in that sense, maybe love ruining you completely, if you get yourself back up after, and that's a huge if, and if you can learn to love again, which is an even bigger if, then your love will be even fuller, more truthful, more...what?"
"More close to the source. To the all, that is love."
She stared at him. "I hate that."
"I know."
"I mean, that really fucking hurts, saying it out loud."
"That it was necessary?"
She bit her lip, trying to keep her emotions in check. Her anger had stopped flooding her mind, and was giving way to sorrow. She was much better at letting her anger speak, with him anyway. Almost funny how it used to be the other way around.
"Yes," she said. "I don't want to believe it was necessary. To go through all that. To break so thoroughly. To take years to get back on my feet."
He smiled, softly, and stretched out a hand, touching her lightly on the sternum. "And how do you feel it now?"
She looked up at him, gnawing at her lip. "What, love?"
"Yes."
"I don't feel...", she stopped herself, when a wave of warmth rushed from where his fingers touched her, through her heart, spreading out over her entire being. "Fuck," she muttered. This wasn't love though. Was it? This wasn't love.
Finally, Friday. I usually spend this day decompressing from the week, one of my least creative days.
I pushed on my defiance triggers, and wrote a little flash⚡️
May you have a wonderful start in the weekend ❄️
#vss365 #mystified
#vssmagic #chimera #vssfantasy #vow #2wordprompt #evaluate #limit