Anthesis of Sadness
Chapter 208: It Takes Two

Chapter 208: It Takes Two

I kept climbing. Heavy legs, sore muscles, each step asked more of me. But I climbed.

More slowly, yes. Short of breath, my body trembling at times, but no longer faltering. Straighter. Less evasive.

As if something within me, finally, had straightened up — not out of strength, not out of pride, but out of necessity. A silent, inward uprightness, fragile perhaps... but real.

And with each step, I was no longer fleeing. I was carrying.

Not because I felt better physically. My body was still just as worn, my muscles still tense, my breathing just as short.

Nothing had lightened. Nothing had healed.

But something had straightened within me. Slowly. Silently. Like a broken stem that, despite everything, finds its axis again.

It wasn’t a rebirth. Not a victory.

Just an inner tremor, tenuous, fragile, but enough. Not everything. No. Far from it.

But just enough... to look ahead. To face the next step without averting my gaze. To go on, no longer fleeing, but moving forward.

Around me, there were the flowers I had passed earlier. Scattered, shifting, almost shy.

Three, maybe four, slowly gliding between the spirals of mist, noiseless, like giant fireflies escaped from an old dream.

They floated at a distance, not really approaching me, but not fleeing either. Present. Gentle.

As if they no longer sought to disturb me, but simply to be there. To watch over.

They had something different about them. Less tension in their movements. Less insistence in their silence.

And their eyes... yes, their eyes still shone, but more softly than before. Calmer.

As if they too had understood. As if, somehow, my pain had soothed them. As if my confessions had been enough.

This time... they sang together. The flowers. The voices. The world, maybe.

Not a solemn song, nor a grand one. Not a cry.

Just a sentence. A single one. Simple. Whispered in unison, like a secret no longer kept, a truth gently laid down, so it wouldn’t break.

— It takes two... to climb what cannot be carried alone.

And the sentence... resonated. Not in the air. In my chest. Deeply.

Like an orphan note looking for its place, clumsily, in a heart too battered to beat right.

It vibrated, for a long time, as if it were taking root. As if, for the first time, a word from the outside managed to find a place within me without being rejected. Without being refused.

I didn’t reply. Not a word. Not a marked gesture. Nothing that could say "yes" or "no."

But my arms... relaxed. Slowly. Almost without me knowing.

As if, without my deciding, something within me was finally letting go.

As if my muscles, until then clenched around the child, around the fear, around everything, accepted to loosen the grip.

He was still there, against me. I hadn’t let go.

But I no longer held him like one clutches pain. I carried him differently.

Maybe even... with a little less fear. A little more trust.

I looked at the child. Truly. For the first time... I looked at him.

Not out of the corner of my eye, not through my doubts, not as a burden or a puzzle to solve. Not as a weight. Not as a shadow stuck to my steps.

Not as a mute memory dragged because I hadn’t had the courage to leave it behind.

No. I looked at him as someone. A being. Present. Alive. Unique.

With his silences, his shivers, his past tears. With his expectations.

And that way he had of not speaking, but being there — fully there.

A fragile existence, but whole. And in his eyes, I saw no judgment.

Just a presence. Calm. Steady. Almost... brotherly.

He said nothing. Not a word, not a murmur.

But his breath changed. Barely. Just slightly. A tiny variation in rhythm, in the warmth against my skin.

Just enough to pass through me. To touch me.

And in that almost imperceptible tremor, there was everything.

A message without sound, without shape, but so clear that I didn’t need to interpret it.

He had seen me. He too.

Not as a monster. Not as a savior.

Just... as someone. Someone alive. Present. Fallible. Here.

And that breath... was worth all the words.

I didn’t know what to do.

There were no obvious gestures, no learned responses, nothing to say that would have been right.

So I held him close. Slowly. Deeply.

Not to protect him — I knew I didn’t have that power.

Not to reassure myself either.

But to feel him alive. Warm. Present. Real.

Against my skin, against my heart that still beat, despite everything.

And inside me... something stirred. Discreetly. Fragilely.

It wasn’t an identifiable emotion. Nor a painful memory surfacing.

It was something else. A tremor. An inner breath, tenuous, elusive.

Like a space opening. A secret room left closed too long.

A place... where something might be born.

It wasn’t love. Not yet.

But I now felt, for the first time, the space where it could grow. Take root. Maybe. One day.

The big-eyed flowers drifted away. In silence.

Without waiting for an answer, without demanding a look in return.

Their supple bodies undulated in the mist, as if carried by a current I could not see.

Their wide, glistening eyes no longer stared at anything.

They looked elsewhere, or maybe they had never really looked at anyone.

They simply left, as they had come — discreet, elusive, almost unreal.

Their departure was not a goodbye.

It was a retreat. A wordless bow.

As if their role was finished. As if they knew they were no longer needed.

They knew.

They had sung not to be heard, but to hand me a sentence. A single one.

The one I didn’t dare think. The one I had never known how to phrase without trembling.

And now... now that it lived in me, silent but rooted, like a new root in upturned soil, I could no longer go back down.

There was no more turning back, no more forgetting possible, no more retreat into familiar darkness.

I could no longer falter.

Not because I had become stronger. But because I had been seen. Because I had seen.

Because now, even if my legs gave out, even if vertigo returned, I would carry that sentence in me — like a quiet light that can no longer be extinguished.

I climbed again.

The steps followed one another, drowned in mist, indifferent to my short breath, my heavy shoulders, my still trembling thoughts.

But I climbed. Without question. Without heroic strength.

Just with that inner thread, taut but intact, pulling me upward.

A bare will, without brilliance, without promise of an end.

Not to flee. Not to prove. To move forward.

Because now, I knew that each step carried more than just me.

And turning back... would have betrayed what I had just acknowledged.

And the world... for the first time... did not weigh against me.

It weighed with me.

It was no longer that dull and hostile mass, that heavy sky ready to collapse, those invisible walls crushing me with every breath.

It was no longer the adversary. No longer the judge.

It was there. Present.

Dense, yes — but no longer to test me, to break me, to bring me to my knees.

It was there like a hand under my step, like a complicit gravity.

It weighed with me, on me, in me.

Not to slow me. To anchor me.

To remind me that I was alive, that I was still holding on, that I was still climbing.

And that I was no longer alone.

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