BEAR AND SHARE
Silence is the sound of rest
The only sound that can sound best
While other sounds can cause great pain
Silence is not the sound to blame
"Sometimes it helps to talk to someone who gets it."
Mike remembers her previous words now as her gaze is soft and warm upon his face.
It's not something he would wish for her to empathise, but she does and he is far more grateful that he might ever divulge.
"You okay?" Max asks him as she prepares his make-shift bed on Ryan's couch.
He nods too quickly, "Yeah…" and her expression tell him she's not convinced, "Not really." He corrects himself with a subtle shake of his head; the tears swell in his eyes, threatening to fall.
"Wanna talk?" she inquired, knowing the answer before he gives voice to it.
The question is considered this time but he answers equally as soon, knowing he should but certainly couldn't – not quite yet. "Not really." Though his voice echoed the previous words, the latter of the syllables hitched in his throat and dared to lose themselves mid-sentence.
"Ok," she breathes, almost a whisper. "We'll just sit here." It's a promise he's certain she'll keep. If it weren't for the depth in her eyes, he could rely on the steadfast trust he had in her; the same trust Mike hoped she now found in him.
Their eyes meet for about the hundredth time in the same day and they share a smile. A small one, but one of significance; a secret smile – one shared only between the two of them; one that is undeserving of anyone else.
Some time passed and Max kept her promise to grant him the lack of obligation to speak and the consolation of her company. The depth of the silence between them however somehow communicated louder than any word might possibly conceive.
They say silence is a sort of absence and Max was inclined to agree while she sat across from Mike: that thick air of comfortable quietude lingering between them. Silence is the presence of a great nothingness; void of words better left unspoken; it was something and yet nothing. An odd sort of solace could be found in its depths, the young woman decided.
The silence was cut short however when a sudden convulsive gasp escaped Mike's throat.
It seems that in those few moments of quiet, the agony boiled and bubbled within Mike's very core; yearning to be released only for it to smoulder its way toward an inevitable explosion of grief.
Perhaps, should Mike have less of a control on his emotions, it might've burned into a form of jests and insults. After which most people would flee to leave him in a pit of perpetual misery.
Max however, would stay with him – he was sure of it. He could rely on her very own similar experience to certify that she would not – could not - abandon him.
The same conviction rattled within Max's mind: she could feel his pain gathering inside of her and if he looked up just then from his tear-stained hands, he'd find her heart ready to plummet in her eyes – the combination of his pain and her past years of emotional torment burning into her soul.
Max promptly rose from the couch, to her feet and towards Mike, kneeling before him. She placed one hand on his knee while the other coaxed his own from his face.
Finally, with her assurance, his hands left his face, one falling to grasp Max's hand atop his knee.
His eyes find hers, prepared and all too willing to share in his burden.
The sheer intensity of her conviction had him defeated and his head falling into the gentle curve of her shoulder. His arms looped their way under her own, pulling her towards him – engulfing her in the most desperate of embraces. Max quickly adjusts to the new position and the new found bond between herself and Mike Weston.
The dampness of his tears reach her skin and Max can only adjust her hold on the clothing at his back, impossibly but surely tightening the embrace.
His soft cries fall into painful sobs as he clings to her body in the sincerest form of gratitude.
I cant promise it will be easy,
I can promise it will be long.
But together we can make it.
Together we can keep strong.