Carrie felt a crack in the dam she’d built around herself.
When she was a child and furious, a strand would smoke. When she was heartbroken, the copper would fade to a dull, rusted brown. When she was truly, devastatingly happy—a state she had only experienced twice—the tips would glow like the last second of a match. carrie emberlyn
“Oh,” he said, softly. As if he had just solved a puzzle he’d been working on for a long time. “So that’s what that is.” Carrie felt a crack in the dam she’d built around herself
They didn't.
She fell in love with him in the stacks of a university library. He was showing her a book on lichen— yes, lichen —and he was so animated, so unapologetically excited about the symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an alga, that she felt a warmth spread from her chest. She looked down. A strand of her hair, the one above her left ear, had curled into a perfect, glowing question mark. She quickly tucked it behind her ear, her heart hammering. When she was truly, devastatingly happy—a state she
He didn’t ask if it was natural. He didn’t call it fire hair. He just reached out, very slowly, and touched the tip of the strand that had formed the glowing question mark. It was cool to his fingers.