SA | February prompt | She didn't

+3 AP (302 words & February prompt) | For Midas

Amber loved a lot of things. Things she pretended not to love. She loved flowers. Loved the ones that sprouted even in the cold of winter. Loved their color and their smell, the look of them in her hair. She told herself she didn’t. She sneered at such fragile things, even when in her heart she held them dear. Amber did with many things. Pushed away her father, her mother. Had tried so hard to push away her brother. And had gotten her anger at her sister repaid with the painful memory of final moments filled with contempt instead if goodbyes. The truth was Amber was full of love but loving hurt, with a bite as cold as winter. And thus Amber pushed away and fought what was dearest to her. Everytime it came too close, she pushed it away and it came crumbling back down again, leaving her alone, longing, lonely. It still hurt, but she had convinced herself it hurt less. It didn’t.

Despite all her hatred, Amber loved her home as she loved her family and it was for it she battled everyday. With much more tears, blood and sweat than it should have cost, but she gave it all she got. And with every breath she suffered, she could be happy she was pushing them to be different, to create a herd her sister had never gotten the chance to live in. If she hadn’t loved as fiercly as she did, she might have given up years before and left her herd for what it was. Inherently wrong and broken. She could have walked, left and taken the high road to places that were better, more deserving of her attention. But she didn’t and what Amber didn’t spoke as much of love as hhe things she did do.