She’s a little bastard.

In Eliza’s case, words always fall through the cracks and get splattered onto the ground. But in her defense, verbalizing internal stirring, twisting, and jittering (one would call these “passions”) in the presence of another is never her strongest suit. Naush knows that, so it makes it all the while more intriguing to watch her struggle with her awkward expressions of affection. Maybe it’s in a crinkled sticker of a smiley emoji passed onto him when he failed an interview or in the form of a piece of inexplicably damp, rough-edged pancake that was only crunchy because the sugar lumps didn’t completely dissolve. Sometimes it could also be a shext with illegible, cryptic codes referencing to 2000’s humor blended with memetic pop culture. Once it was a trinket of a bad inside joke flipped outward, thrown in the direction of Naush’s tightened frowns.

But more oftentimes it would be the silent yet mutual recognition of existence exchanged between the two when the night befalls and their bodies sink and morph into respective shapes of security and calmness. Just two puddles of humans too static to spread and have nothing but the reflections of each other bouncing off the ceiling and the floor and the bed and the sheets. Naush would’ve written her a collection of thoughts with two more sagas if he had hands (as a puddle, one normally doesn’t). But it is not called for when Eliza could already recite the content. Instead, she’d tear off a blank page of her diary of papyri to let it dissolve in Naush’s peace of mind, because what more needs to be said when you could offer a part of yourself to the completion of another?

The last time this happened was when Naush stupidly poured his heart out into an empty glass of a person. This time Eliza is the one rippled with doubts. The talk with Ally clearly went awry. At 2 a.m. in the morning, words are falling through the cracks as she scrambles for thoughts. Naush does nothing but gaze at her until she recollects her breath. Because there’s nothing in need aside from his sureness of her and hers him, and this contrasts so starkly with what Eliza holds for Ally. There are different types of affection, but there is only one sense of surety.

“You little bastard, you should’ve said it.”