Stolen Voices ✓

December 7th

December 7th:

Mara sometimes pictured her life being a film, wishing for a boy to blow out sixteen candles on a cake with her. She envisioned herself in the dimly lit room, sitting crossed-legged across from a boy who'd never noticed her before today- the only one to remember her birthday. To stand outside the church with a bouquet of her favorite red flowers and whisk her off her feet.

To steal all her broken thoughts and replace them with the single treasured memory of this birthday. But her life isn't a movie, and she isn't Molly Ringwald.

Mara didn't think he would know, another day on the calendar, not marked as important to anyone. She didn't feel him slip from beneath her arms, leaving her abandoned in his bedroom. She didn't hear him sneak out towards the treehouse under the twilight stars, his hands stuffed with streamers and such. The clock just sprung midnight, another minute, another day to misremember. She surely didn't feel him reappear through the old creaking door, nor did she sense him looming over her.

His hand falls to her shoulder, shaking her a few times before she stirs, disoriented. It is snowing outside, burying the ground even brighter, its flakes shimmering beneath the moonlight. The treehouse has string lights hung around the inside, its glow through the single window of its expanse.

They will decorate the whole house today, Elias showing Mara what Christmas is really about, the appeal. But right now isn't for carols sung beneath the mistletoe. It is meant to be a puff of wind blowing out nineteen candles sprinkled over a messily frosted cake. He'd woken his mom up to help him, which she did, happy to see that simper on his face.

He'd told them the truth, all of it the day they arrived. As if a weight lifted off his shoulders, one that had been there far too long. He was featherlight, like a fledgling, his heart swelled for the girl who laid beneath his covers. She blinks slowly, her eyes adjusting to the dark of the room.

"Emmy," he murmurs against her ear, shaking her shoulders harder this time. She is a rock when asleep, not one to wake up to the shrill sirens of an alarm. But the low vibrato of his voice is enough to startle her upright.

"Huh, what?" She blinks, rubbing her eyes. Cupping his face, she figures he's had a nightmare or something, staring at him so earnestly. He can see the tire in her eyes, the suppressed yawn, but she is alert; for him. If possible he loves her more, placing a dainty kiss on her temples.

"Follow me," he murmurs, extending his hand towards her in the dark. Like the fairytale she'd always wished for, prince charming to whisk her off her feet. Accepting his hand with her own, the smile forming on her lips, he pulls her into his chest. She stumbles, trying to get her footing at the quick change in action.

"Late night CIA mission?" She proposes, "I'm starting to like these."

Elias leads her out through his window without a response, his sweatshirt overwhelming her frame. Strayed tendrils of her hair fall over her forehead, watching as her heated breath hits the bitter air around them, the smog whirling around her lips. The tip of her nose turns red as she takes a moment to stare at the beauty found deep within the wintertime, the bareness and complete exposure of the world around them.

"Do you remember coming here?" He asks, climbing on the latter below her as she scaled into the treehouse. Her tattered Converse, catching the wooden steps, pulling herself higher until she falls into its narrow space.

"If I'm being honest, not really. It's all a little blurry, but some moments are clearer than others. I think I was drinking that night anyways," she clucks her tongue, moving so Elias can sit across from her. The battery-operated lights and lit candles create a glow as they meet each other's eyes.