UnwrittenRainbows
"Be careful next time," she tells me as she puts the needle down. "Your aunt would be furious if she were to discover you running around the grounds in your second-best dress."
The stillness in the clearing (for the clearing is always still) is usually calming to Anna. Today, it's unnerving.
He's a lit match. She's trying to figure out how to approach the subject, but he's a lit match. His face turns red, flames appear in his eyes--not sparks but forest fires, wildfires, huge devastating blazes.
"What are you trying to say?" he demands. She steps back; can't set her alight, not now. Still she's so close.
"Nothing," she backtracks, "Nothing at all."
"That's what I thought."
Flames flicker and fade with the last remnants of her courage.
They're not quite sure what to do after the twenty minute drive to the airport. He helps her unload her luggage from the trunk of his hybrid and they stand there, hands in their pockets, staring at her luggage and his car and sneaking quick glances at each other.
"I should really go," she says, fiddling with the tassels on her purse. "It's been... it's been nice." She manages a quick smile before slinging her carry-on over her shoulder and tugging at the grey rolling suitcase.
"Here," he says, "I'll help." He doesn't want to say goodbye. And even though this is just a few more minutes, it's still time he's with her, time before the instant they have to say goodbye. They walk to the check-in counter in silence and when she receives her boarding pass, he knows it's time. "So this is it." He scuffs his feet on the beige and grey tiled floor.
"Yes."
"Goodbye, then."
"Goodbye." She begins the walk toward the security check, heels clicking on the tiles and echoing off the walls.
"Wait, I--" he calls after her, "I--" A smile forms on her face as if she knows what he wants to say but can't. "Have a good trip," he blurts out, then immediately turns away and walks through the doors back to his car.
He's cared about her since before the universe began, before the primeval seas swept the earth, before she can even imagine.
Everything reminded her of that fight, the one that was about everything she had done and nothing he had. Because he was always right and no matter how much she wanted him to believe her, he always dismissed her point of view.
All that she had done was wrong; she was wrong about dancing, wrong about love, wrong about herself. He meant well--he cared about her, she knew--but it always hurt and soon the happiest parts of her life reminded her only of his attacks.
It's just out of reach. It's the maximum of a function you just can't find, so you stare at your calculator, fingers scrabbling at something, anything, trying and failing. And when you finally do, when you finally pull your weary body onto the narrow ledge, you forget that you are so high up that any small thing could topple you, that this is a complete dismissal of your past and when you stare into the abyss, there is nothing but light because anything you see is through relieved lenses.
We tumble down the hill, giggling and shrieking like little kids, not a care in the world, only the sweet scent of grass and the warm summer wind around us. It's not until we finally reach the bottom and collapse far too close to each other, laughing, even though we're out of breath, that we finally realize just what's happening.
They say everyone needs a partner, that every Romeo needs his Juliet, that there's a Darcy for every Elizabeth. Is it so wrong that I don't, that I don't want to rely on someone else only to be let down?
They say it's mean to string him along, to make him believe he has a chance. But she says he had one--and he lost it.
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writing since 2013 · 15 entries · 15 days shown up
each square is a day—lit means Claire showed up.
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the words Claire reaches for
wrongfinallygoodbyefacetryingyesbodyrememberhorribleanswerwhateveralarmfightloveforgetbelieve