12-28-2024, 03:15 PM
“Because he diminishes you,” she said immediately, both argumentative and protective. Ashton thought she had no right to her feelings, and by logic’s turn he was right. But Esper followed her own whims and she did not need them to make sense.
The emotion was shimmering off him by now, infecting his voice in a way that soothed her frustrations into something closer to reason. It would be easier by far to force him to love her – it would become the truth eventually, she knew it would. But she also knew Roza would not like it. That wasn’t actually enough to stop her, not unless either of them elicited a promise, but it was also true that the push never tasted as sweet as what people felt organically. Or what the singing made them feel in unison, as she had recently discovered.
She reached to lift his chin. His eyes were so big. “I saw you at the party,” she said. “It was beautiful, and I would have stayed forever. You feel like family to me.”
Inside he was a maelstrom of conflict, and Esper did not know how to unpick it – or how to understand it. She had never imagined that he would resist the connection between them, though he said he felt it too. “Why are you sad? And how do I fix it?”
The emotion was shimmering off him by now, infecting his voice in a way that soothed her frustrations into something closer to reason. It would be easier by far to force him to love her – it would become the truth eventually, she knew it would. But she also knew Roza would not like it. That wasn’t actually enough to stop her, not unless either of them elicited a promise, but it was also true that the push never tasted as sweet as what people felt organically. Or what the singing made them feel in unison, as she had recently discovered.
She reached to lift his chin. His eyes were so big. “I saw you at the party,” she said. “It was beautiful, and I would have stayed forever. You feel like family to me.”
Inside he was a maelstrom of conflict, and Esper did not know how to unpick it – or how to understand it. She had never imagined that he would resist the connection between them, though he said he felt it too. “Why are you sad? And how do I fix it?”