She’d looked up at him once, when he was stroking her face, both of them naked and togethe

She’d looked up at him once, when he was stroking her face, both of them naked and together, and she’d muttered a few words, her voice scraping the top of her range. It was cracked and broken, an indicator of exactly how she felt after what they had done. But she’d needed cracking, and she’d wanted to be broken. It was a catharsis. 

“You make me feel so small.”

Those were the words, and they were uttered with the kind of offhanded innocence that any perceived insult or complaint was never perceived, never even considered. He’d smiled in the knowledge that he’d done the right thing, that he was, in that moment, just. 

She didn’t want to feel small right now. It made her feel alone, broken and cracked in all the wrong ways. She wanted to go outside and not feel as though the world could swallow her up, wanted to swallow her up. She’d never understood agoraphobia. What could be so scary about the open?

She understood agoraphobia. It was the unwillingness to face the truth of one’s insignificance, answering with denial the question that you accept that you’re a speck on a speck, a mote on the pale blue dot. 

So she stayed inside, where the walls were the only indicator that she wasn’t as big as she wanted to be. She was ok with being small in here, where it was just four walls almost within arm’s reach. 

She’d told him that he made her feel small. The part she hadn’t told him was that, when he was around, she was ok with that. She wished she had.