I bit my lip, stifling my urge to recount last night's adventure with cough syrup.
"But... " His fingers touched my lips lightly, making me shiver again. "There are other hungers. Hungers I don't even understand, that are foreign to me."279
"I may understand that better than you think," I winked at him.
"I'm not used to feeling so human. Is it always like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like—" Fredward waved his hands in the air, gesturing at us, the trees, and everything else, "like this!"
"For me?" I paused, not sure what he was asking. I decided to play it safe. "No, never. Never before this."
"Probably not for anyone else, ever. We are the first ones... " He held my hands between his. They felt so feeble in his iron strength. "I don't know how to be close to you," he admitted. "I don't know if I can."
I leaned forward very slowly, cautioning him with my eyebrows, and placed my cheek against his chest. I could hear his inexplicable breath, and nothing else.
"This is enough," I sighed, closing my eyes.
In a very human gesture, he put his arms around me and pressed his face against my hair.
"You're better at this than you give yourself credit for."
"I have human instincts—they may be buried deep under pounds of flesh, but they're there."
We sat like that for another immeasurable moment; how can we value our moments? By what yardstick or rubric can we say one is better than another? As time passes from one moment to the next, we have no choice but to say that each moment is a moment, and that thus all are equal. All are moments.
But I could see the light was fading, the shadows of the forest beginning to touch us, and I sighed.
"You have to go."
"No, you have to go," I teased.
"No, really, your father will be home soon."
279. Not only has Fredward never popped his cork, he wasn't aware he even had one.