Redsand Canyon you were baptized in ice [m]

It was comforting, and in that moment it felt like he could hide her comparatively tiny frame, like he could simply wrap around her and shelter her from the world. She found she quite liked the idea of that, though she didn’t know how to process such positive emotions… she’d never felt like this before, and she brushed it off as friendship, truthfully not knowing better as if it could hit her upside the head any harder. The emphasis on the word that caused a soft shudder down her spine, breathing in and out slowly once more. She needed to keep her calm. She needed to maintain her emotional poise… never let them see you sweat.
 
He insisted that she could come whenever she wanted, and in that moment she felt her heart lift, her eyes soften as she rightfully read into his words… only for him to clarify, and she felt her heart sink back. She chided herself for thinking that he might think of her as anything more than a friend and a resource. She tried to pretend her heart was not crushed, even if she didn’t fully realize that it had been beating for him in that moment to begin with.
 
Her head was a mess; of course she was reading into things all wrong. He was a man who had shown her a modicum of respect and attention when she was not used to it… she was reading into things and confusing herself surely… except she did not feel this way about Arsenio, or Germanicus… or Towhee, with her lady nuts… so could it really simply be an oversimplified version of her own self-image when it came to her worthiness to be loved?
 
She remained silent, instead settling for the role that had been so swiftly clarified, breathing in and out and simply trying to hold her shit together for just a moment longer. “I like being here with you.” Her voice betrayed her with a soft crack in it.