Overture Downs not my friend but i wont say no

oh, she knows. knows the exact shape of his hunger, the way it lingers in the sharpness of his eyes, in the pause between words that never fully leave his tongue. she sees it when his breath brushes close, a plume of white, close enough that if she only dared—if she only moved a little—

she doesn’t. only watches, listens, holds the moment in her grasp, something she might wish to keep.

"i have met few women like you." a cruel thing to say when he means to leave.

she doesn’t answer, only looks at him, takes in his features while he is so near, takes in his words as they nearly become something more. But they do not. he doesn’t finish his thought—he is tempted, perhaps—but he does not.

coward.

and yet, the thought isn’t bitter. like their interaction, it was wry, something knowing. she finds in his eyes what he leaves unsaid, and she holds it there, clutches it to the marrow of her ribs where he cannot take it back from her.

then he is gone. she watches him go, eyes heavy-lidded and unreadable. a breath slips from her nose, the ghost of a smirk curving upon her lips.

in another life. perhaps.