“Why?”

She flung the question at him, defiant and fierce. It struck him right in the face and she felt no shame. She glared angry daggers at him and willed him to be far away from her and the question beating on his face.

It was not an ugly question though it could have been. If it hung there much longer it would surely turn ugly. She had touched it with her filthy mouth; if it wasn’t horrid now it soon would be. Everything she touched turned ugly. The flowers and the pictures and the song. She had so much wanted them to be beautiful. She had wanted them to prove that maybe she was beautiful. Now she just shoved them further back into the closet and hoped no one would notice them. They were ugly, almost as ugly as she was.

He wasn’t ugly. He was the most beautiful anything she had ever seen. Hard and soft, he defied description. She’d tried one time, but that had turned ugly just like everything else and she had burned it, the sparks floating up, bright against the night until they had turned to ash and fallen back to earth. She looked at him now and knew that any attempt at description she could craft in the next hundred years would never be sufficient. He even made her question look lovely.

He reached up with his master hands and plucked her question from the air. She looked away, shame making tears prick at her eyes. Why had she flung that question at him? Why had she made him notice her, made him look at her with those eyes deeper and more mysterious than the ocean? Why wouldn’t he just walk away like she knew he wanted to?

She looked back at him, hoping to catch a glimpse of his back as he turned away from her. But instead of his back she found herself starring at the side of his face. He was doing something with her question in his master hands. He hadn’t left yet. Not yet.

Just as she thought maybe she should walk away he turned to her. In his hands her question had been transformed. No longer was it all sharp edges and bitterness. Now it was a flower the color of peace, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen next to him. He took a step toward her and tucked the peace flower in her hair. He cupped her face in his master hands and looked deep into her shallow mud-puddle eyes with his ocean-deep eyes.

“Because,” he said, “I wanted to.”

“But-” she started, but before she could finish her half-formed protest he caught her word. He crumpled it in one hand and dropped it to the sand.

“No,” he said “Not but.”

Then he took her hand in his and together they walked toward the sun. Behind them the dropped word shriveled in the light and faded all away.