It has been a pleasant day; neither too hot nor too cold, the sun choosing to puncture the clouds at opportune moments but these sightings have been all too brief for her liking. All things considered however, it is fitting and she is thankful for the absence of rain. She runs her fingers through the jagged blades of grass to the left of where she is positioned on the faded picnic blanket. Thick with moisture, they pay testament to the children who are running back and forth from the sprinklers to their parents somewhere to the right of where she is positioned.
Sinking back onto the blanket, she snaps her eyes shut as if to block out her surroundings. She hasn't smiled properly in months. The forced curvature which promptly displays itself on cue has become so familiar that she is unsure whether she would recognise herself if she allowed it to form without restriction. It is all quite surreal. She should, in theory, allow the pent up emotion to escape and infuse her world with colour again but she cannot risk this; she cannot allow herself to consider the possibility of what may lie in wait.
"Rachel?"
The voice is vaguely recognisable and she is fairly certain that it is the same one she had heard minutes earlier but to confirm this, it means opening her eyes and she is not ready to commit to this yet. The dulcet tone had once been so familiar to her that it would wake her up from the depths of a deep sleep and cloak her in the soothing comfort that she craved. Over time, its tune has faded and note by note, slipped from the page.
"Rach, are you in some kind of trance?"
She doesn't flinch but can sense his close proximity as he eases his frame onto the rug beside her. Breath escapes erratically, her heart ricocheting against the constraints of her chest. It is a heady sensation; fear, lust, want coursing erratically through her veins. He always did have this effect on her.
"No."
"Ok, so you've just taken to impromptu power naps?"
She can almost hear him smile such is the heightened state of her senses but she doesn't return this; she can't return it.
"I'm just trying to work out what I'm doing here."
She hadn't meant the words to escape edged with such bluntness but she is powerless to stop them. Her teeth make contact with her bottom lip which they chew thoughtfully as she waits for his reaction. He studies her for a moment; his gaze travelling the length of her pausing briefly to drink in her features which allows him to consign them to memory. After all, he has an unfailing notion that once the precious minutes traipse into hours, he will never see her again. What was it someone once told him? He tries to remember but it isn't forthcoming, something along the lines of if you never try then you can never be certain.
He exhales and draws his knees to his chest, arranging his disappointment accordingly so that it is not etched across his face. After all, what was he to expect? Six months have drifted past since he has seen her and yet she has not changed but then he hadn't expected her to. His mind often drifts to her in the dead of night as he tries to piece together the snippets of information passed on from her nephew to him. There had been mention of someone called Adam but it had not occurred to him that this was anyone important for he was sure that, like him, it would have taken time for wounds to heal and hearts to mend.
That is why he is here and deep down, she knows it as well as he. If their ending had came as they watched the ruined school tumble around them then both may have been able to accept that destiny does not lie in the other's arms. Both have tried to forget but the memory of the cold February refused to shatter into tiny pieces and drift slowly away on the breeze.
February 29th
The snow has begun to melt taking with it the cocoon they had built up around them. Rain threatens ominously, the clouds, rich with gathering droplets that have woven their way through the splinters of blue, skilfully overpowering and ultimately dismissing their presence. It is as if they had never been there.
She sighs, dragging her gaze away from the changing sky. The temperature has dropped again, the warmth radiating from the open fire is of little comfort so she is forced to concede defeat and retrieve the patchwork quilt from the back of the sofa. Her mood has shifted but she is unable to pinpoint when or why it had done so. It seems silly really, given that she is perhaps the only person who will miss the lingering ice patches and endless snow days as winter drifts slowly into spring.
Her toes curl inside her socks and she is, for the first time, glad that he had managed to convince her that carpeting the living room would be the more sensible option. She had let him win that one but refused to give up the fight for the pink sofa. Call it woman's intuition if you will but she had known instantly that it was the one. She had thought that of him too but life has a strange way of allowing the unexpected to crash barriers and detonate everything in its wake.
The candles which litter the mantelpiece still flicker and she admires their persistence. Perhaps she can learn something from them. Forty eight hours have passed slowly, allowing them to recapture some of the magic which used to define them. But now, as he sleeps soundly in the armchair opposite the television, she begins to wonder whether the spark has been extinguished for the final time.
He doesn't stir as she leans across to dust his forehead with her lips and she is careful to ensure that her tears are suppressed until a safe distance is put between them.