Although she couldn’t form the thought cohesively for you if you asked, she considered wor

Although she couldn’t form the thought cohesively for you if you asked, she considered words to be a temporary, intangible thing. Not the kind you write, because there was a record, right there. But rather the ones you say, away from the company of dictaphones and microphones. 

The instant they’d left her mouth, once their fleeting disturbances had left the particles in the air, once the vibrations were gone, once no sound persisted, it was like nothing had been said. The words, once there, were not.

But when he bore witness to those words, once his ears received them, it all got a little more hazy. She’d convinced herself that she could blame those words on some anonymous, invisible third party so long as he didn’t see the words leave her mouth. Just so long as he didn’t watch her lips form each syllable, observed her tongue loll and tie, her cheeks flush red. So long as none of that happened, then he couldn't really be certain that it was her voice box that hadn’t given life to those fleetingly lived words. 

So she hid her face, buried it in her hands, and let him guess. Let him suppose, and estimate. Let him assume, presume and deduct. But he couldn't know, not for sure, not if he didn’t see her face.

Not that any of these were thoughts that passed before her mind’s eye. No, these were hunches, feelings, shivers that informed her body how to react. She didn’t consider it quite so cooly, because she was far too busy for that.

It took at lot of concentration to cultivate a blush quite that heavy, after all.