Dripping Drops

She'd never been on this side of it before.

The first time, she was the one dripping drops of sunshine in between the cracks of someone's blacked, broken soul.
He hadn't wanted it, but she didn't realize that.
All she knew was that her heart ached for how dark he had become.
All she wanted was to help.
But where she saw herself descending like an angel to rescue him, he saw a pesky mosquito and tried to swat her out of his smoggy sky.

She dodged the blows, misreading them as emotional defense, not legitimate dismissal.
But when he connected, it was a devastating blow.
She came crashing out of the sky and shattered like a porcelain doll on the solid rock of reality.
She tried so hard to pretend there weren't huge chunks of her missing, but she could only fake so long before she started emulating him.
She grew her own dark cloud.
It wasn't black and impenetrable like his, just a light grey that deepened quickly to charcoal through the trials of life.

She was tinting on black when he found her.
A different "he" than the one who broke her.
A "he" that was destined to fix a broken heart.
He swept in abruptly, distracting her long enough for the cloud to fade a few shades.
The look he gave her, that questioning, puzzled gaze that made her heart speed up and color rush to her cheeks, was unsettling.
She could tell that he could see the cracks.
One quick witted retort at a time, sarcastic comment by sarcastic comment, he began dripping drops of sunshine in between the cracks, like she had done for a doomed soul once before.

But she was different.
She didn't swat him out of her sky.
She craved ardently the shining liquid of hope that he seemed to be drenched in.
Slowly, as the drops he gave her began to add up, her cloud faded, until it dissipated entirely.
When that day came, she tested out her feet.
They were shaky after being on her knees for so long, but he slid his arm around her and held her up.
And when she was strong enough, she tested out her wings without a fear of falling, because he never left her side.