Repetition.
She sashays down the corridor in her dark cocktail dress, her heels clicking on the cold stone. Her eyes travel over the torches and stone walls, searching for something that can break her cycle. The one thing you could rely on, like the pain of a broken heart, the tears at a funeral, the fervour of new love, the melancholy of a pessimist, the cheerfulness of an optimist, the cynicism, the sarcasm.
The walls give her no comfort. The torches illuminate the hall dimly. She is frozen stiff, weary of what is coming. She knows what is coming.
He sees her slowly ambling and decides to wait. She moves anxiously, prey waiting to be pounced on in the still coolness of the night. The dress swirls around her thighs delicately, as delicately as her hair brushes across her neck, graceful as a swan.
Her hands weep cold, salty water. They are wringing nervously, giving him small flashes of her red painted nails. Tiny half-moons appear in the middle of her palms as her nails dig at her flesh.
Suddenly, she is standing before him, head bowed, eyes staring at the bright torch near them.
No words are spoken. No words are ever spoken. Words are useless, meaningless. Once, they had cast her into shadows, ones she could never come back from, and now they would wound her deeply, as Regret had. She smiles ruefully to herself. Regret is a bitter companion, one she would have to accept.
He reaches for her hand and she jerks away. Soft music plays. He reaches again and she gives up.
Rue.
She hates her pliancy. She hates her willingness. But somehow, they are her comfort. He gives her the little light she has in her dark life, these little moments at the end of the corridor, every Friday, precisely at midnight.
She leans into him, forgetting, ignoring the voices calling her back into darkness. She gives herself up, tired of her life.
Kisses, soft and feathery, cover her cheeks. He pulls back, like always, and stares into her eyes.
Glazed shadows are all he sees. The fire plays across her eyes, making them sparkle innocently.
There is nothing innocent about her life. He kisses her again, and their night goes on with kisses, confessions of love. And when the clock strikes two, she kisses him and smiles, disappearing into the shadow.
As she walks away, she sighs quietly. She will be back again next Friday for the intoxication, the desire.
But she commits herself to the one thing she hates—
Repetition.