Page 73 of Where Your Scars Meet Mine
My hand shoots out on instinct, catching his sleeve, yanking him back hard enough that he stumbles a little.
“You’ll crush her,” I hiss.
He blinks at me, startled. “Crush who?”
I don’t answer right away. I just lean over the blankets and scoop Rose carefully into my palm, lifting her from the crumpled patch of quilt where she had frozen in place after his entrance. She crawls onto my fingers like she already knows the shape of me.
“Rose,” I say, holding my hand out slightly. “My moth.”
I brace myself for the laugh.
Or the face people usually make when they think you’re strange and then try to cover it with politeness.
Instead, his expression changes entirely.
His eyes widen, not in mockery but in something that looks almost like wonder. He takes one small step closer, careful this time, his whole body shifting from restless and sharp into something calmer.
“I haven’t seen one like this in years,” he says softly.
The softness catches me off guard more than if he had laughed.
His gaze stays on Rose, following the bright green and pink of her wings with an attentiveness that feels completely at odds with the boy who slammed into my room cursing and furious two minutes ago.
“Can I?” he asks.
He lifts his hand just a little, palm open, waiting.
The hesitation in me has less to do with Rose and more to do with him. Letting people touch delicate things has never felt wise. But there’s something in his face right now that makes him seem younger. Less dangerous. Just a kid looking at something beautiful like he forgot he was allowed to.
Slowly, I nod.
He sits on the edge of the bed this time instead of dropping onto it, moving with surprising care. Lowering Rose toward hishand, for a second she pauses between us, her tiny feet testing his skin before she crawls onto his palm.
He goes very still.
It’s almost funny, the difference between this and the way he moved through my room before. The St. Augustine boy who ran in like a storm is suddenly sitting beside me like one wrong breath might scare her off. His hand is bigger than mine, rougher-looking, but he holds Rose with impossible gentleness.
I settle down beside him, close enough to keep an eye on her if she starts to flutter too hard. For a moment neither of us says anything. The silence shifts from awkward to almost peaceful, interrupted only by the noise of distant voices in the hallway and the faint tap of Rose’s tiny legs against his skin.
To fill it, because I don’t know what else to do with a quiet boy, a moth and a room that suddenly feels too small for all the things we’re not saying, I clear my throat.
“Moths can remember things,” I tell him.
He glances sideways at me, one brow lifting just slightly.
“Not like people do,” I add quickly. “Not memories exactly. But they remember routes, smells…things that kept them alive. They’re better at finding their way than people think.”
He looks back at Rose, the corner of his mouth tugging in the faintest smirk.
“Full of facts?” he asks.
I feel my face warm immediately. “I have more if you want them.”
His smirk deepens, but only a little.
“I figured you did.”
There’s something about the expression that unsettles me in a way I don’t hate. It changes his whole face. Makes him look less like someone escaping a fight and more like someone who might actually be my age if life had let him.
