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That Melancholy Girl
In That Haze — No1 (Micro)
I caught Eloise around her waist, the skirt of her white dress fluttering against me while I inhaled the sweet scent of rosewater at the nape of her neck.
“Dane,” she said, a giggle in her throat, “what are you doing?”
“I’m making sure you don’t get lost,” I said, though the words were complete bull. How could she get lost in the botanic garden we’d wandered on and off for years?
“I was just heading to the rose garden,” she said. “Want to join me?”
“Roses,” I said, pulling back and tugging at her hand. “How boring of you.”
“Don’t make fun of me!”
“I’m not!” I said — though, yes, of course I was. “But, really, you have the whole garden to explore. Why do you stick to the roses of all things?”
“They speak to me,” Eloise said, her tone soft. Her eyes wandered along the path that circled to where the roses lay in wait.
That faraway look of hers — what did she see?
But I shook myself of the question and instead said, gentler, “Is it that thing about roses having thorns? You think you have thorns?”
“I think I’m more beast than beauty, actually,” she said.
