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The Enemy
Silvia paused the video one more time, her heart beating in her throat instead of her aching chest. Tears played funny tricks to her eyes, painting a bright halo around Jim on the screen, turning him into a blinding figure in the reddish shadows of the stage, with that fevered and obedient crowd at his feet, looking up at him in adoration.
She didn’t want to watch anymore.
She didn’t want to listen to what came next.
She didn’t want to hear him call out straight to her love. To know if she would still dare the gale, crawl out from under the rubble, walk through the ravaged ruins he’d left of her heart.
She didn’t want to step into the eye of that hurricane he couldn’t rein in anymore, because it’d become the flame that kept him alive.
And at the same time, it didn’t matter how many poetic arguments her survival instinct came up with to seduce her and hold her back. She knew she wouldn’t refuse.
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