Language with
intention.

He didn't mean to watch her for that long.

But there was a stubborn tenderness in her, the kind that didn't ask to be trusted and didn't seem frightened by the parts of him that had learned to keep secrets. It found the one door inside him the mud and the wire and the names he no longer allowed himself to say had never quite managed to nail shut.

She turned toward him, and the last of the sun gathered in her eyes.