head buried in the sand

It feels like they're bleeding from the knees.

Dull, shifting pain coordinates with the unobtrusive, implied tightness of hair pulled back. It's either one single tear shed, or angry whips of teeth that let not one solitary thing, betrayal shaped, spill.

"You're quiet," Tyrea observes. Her thumb smooths along the ridges of their thumbs, bringing that same dull pressure.

She's right. They have very different kinds of quietness. Their quietnesses are also very much the same.

"I choose my words carefully."

"But you are going to say something, eventually?"

They are. It's just...very hard to think. When you're bleeding.