literature

Fireflies are Bittersweet

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Published: Sep 2, 2010

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Literature Text

"What do you think of fireflies?" she asked him, tracing the slopes of his collarbones with shaking fingers. The sun was three hours below the horizon line and the moon was painting her hair with gold and he just couldn't help but fall in love with the shadows on her skin, but that one question--so innocent, so softly-spoken--was his undoing. "I hate them." Sighing, Gabe closed his eyes, Jessica's fingers stilling on his chest. "You hate them? How can you hate fireflies?" He glanced at her from beneath the hinges of his dark lashes, shaking his head. Jessica just didn't understand. She ignited the stars with her laughter each night; she boiled the blood in his veins with just one look; she made him weep for fear of losing her. She didn't feel time slipping out of reach the way Gabe did. She didn't realize the fireflies were burning into darkness, and that meant summer was ending. Chuckling darkly, Gabe sat up, startling her. "It's nothing, really. Just silly superstition." Gabe would never admit that for the last two months, his sun had risen in Jessica's heartbeats. He could never tell her that he often watched her breathe; that he knew her favorite smell was honey so he'd made a habit of bathing in it; that he'd memorized every wrinkle of her knuckles. Jessica was a small-town girl with city-lit dreams, and Gabe...well, he was just another breeze-boy passing through on his way to anywhere else. And he hadn't meant to fall for her. He hadn't meant to share his whispered secrets across a bed of grass with a girl he'd never seen before...but he had. "Well, I still think it's silly. They're beautiful." And Gabe could never tell her that he hated them because their light was bittersweet, a nightly reminder that his time with her was coming to a close. That he was set to leave in just one week--maybe two, if he was lucky--and when he did, he was bound to leave her bleeding. And he could never admit it to anyone...but that...that broke his heart more than anything.