Re: Side of the road: Sparrow & Jude
She watched fingers drag through hair, and she watched smile blossom. She liked the sound of his laughter in the confines of the car, and she shuttered eyes the tiniest bit to enjoy it. This open book liked to take things into its pages, remember, and that was a thing that came of forgetting. But she liked the sound, and she listened while he talked about the song, about how long it took to find the lyrics that the world attributed to his name. "Are you asking if it's strange that it took so long to track it down? Or are you asking if it's strange that you like it?" Both questions were good ones, and she tipped her head to the side, a curious little bird considering both things maybe-asked. He provided a clue in his latter words, but she was already considering, and it was the first thing he said that made her curious. "Why did you wait so long? I think most people love to hear things about themselves, and they would've looked the first time." The question was asked with genuine interest, and her voice lifted soft at the end, punctuating the question with a kind of soft intimacy that invited telling.
He spoke of the abandoned houses that dotted the woods beyond her carnival home, and she smiled with candid fondness, evident pleasure in the soft lips that curved upward at corners. "I love those houses. When it's warm, I walk the woods a lot, and I stand in front of them and wonder who lived there, who created them, who left them. They're like lives breathing, slumbering, waiting to share their stories." The words came easy, and this woman didn't guard her thoughts. She spilled them like rainwater in spring, and she liked that he mentioned family. "Do you like him, your brother? Not love. I think everyone loves their family, even when they hate them, but do you like him?"
His question about the carnival received a small, small answer. "Since I left home." She wasn't being coy or withholding; it was simply the only answer she had to give.