Page 60 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
He stood like the trees. Like the stone.
Too old to move.
Too wounded to speak.
And maybe that was worse.
She laughed once. Sharp. Bitter.
“God, do you even care what this is doing to me? Or is this just some eternal cryptid mating ritual? Midnight mindfuck, emotional chaos, vanish again until next time?”
His hands flexed at his sides. Like her words cut deep.
And that was worse, too. Because she wanted to hurt him.
He had made her feel too much.
And now she was unraveling in the middle of the road, screaming at a myth.
“You think I wanted this?” she said. “You think I came out here to get spiritually wrecked by a seven-foot bark cryptid?”
He took a step forward.
She froze.
He didn’t reach for her.
But his face looked shattered.
And that broke her all over again.
She took a step back. He didn’t follow.
“I don’t know what you are,” she whispered.
“Or what I am now. Or if I’m just losing my fucking mind.”
She hadn’t meant to sound broken. But she did.
And he looked at her like she’d dropped something between them. Something sacred.
“I’m not yours,” she said, softer now.
“You don’t get to just take me.”
And that seemed to do it.
He lowered his head.
Then he vanished.
Like he’d never been there.
Like she’d screamed into a dream.
She dropped to her knees in the dust.
Her chest felt like it was caving in. She pressed her hands to the earth, tried to breathe.
