She comes to you in the middle of the night, armed with tears and Thai food. Her eyes are stained red with sadness and you feel helpless but to hold her as she steps tentatively inside and shuts the door behind. You take the steaming box from her, and she's all too happy to fall into your arms as she has so many times before. You can feel her desperation in the tears soaking through your shirt, but you don't know what's wrong this time, what could possibly be so wrong that she would be in such a defenceless state. She squeezes you tighter against her, and you feel that you should have heart shaped bruises upon your chest from the frantic beating of her pulse and your increasingly painful proximity. You can feel her fingers clasping each other fiercely behind your back, scrabbling with a terrible urgency for something to hold and finding nothing but her own cold hands. Her head rests softly on your shoulder, her hair damp from the relentless drizzle outside. Her fingernails dig slightly into your skin as silent tears turn to muffled sobs into your chest, and you welcome the pain if it diminishes hers.
"Ssh," you whisper, one hand on her back and the other gently stroking her hair as she leans further into you. There's something wrong here, you know that. The way that she's not yours, not anyone's, yet you hold her close like this as if she is. You also know that she left work early today. She threw on her coat and muttered something vague about dinner plans with an old friend. A date, you suspected. Anger swells within you at him, whoever he was. What has he done to her? Eventually, she pulls away from you. She wipes her eyes on her sleeve and sits down on your sofa, her breath hitching slightly as the tears subside.
"I need to change," she says quietly, unsurely.
"What? No. No! You don't need to change," you reply, shocked. I love you just the way you are, you want to say, but you can't. "You're perfect just the way you are," you assure her instead.
"No... it's just, I- I want to change. That man... that man I went out with this evening, he..." she starts, faltering. He wasn't you, she wants to say, but she can't. "He was just like all the others," she says instead. "There was just no... connection. And it occurred to me that I will never connect with anybody if I don't change. I've become comfortable with the life that I'm living, too comfortable. That's why I brought... Thai food," she explains. "You always bring Thai food to me. I thought it was an appropriate switch."
You nod slowly, encouraging her, but inside your heart sinks; another man trying to change her. Every man she meets tries to change her, to mold her to their likes and wants, their fickle fantasies and desires, but not you: you love her just the way she is. You look at her wistfully, sat there on your sofa with her hair plastered to her scalp and her face stained with mascara tears, and you think that it might be time to show her.
"I'm sorry," she says suddenly, climbing somewhat unsteadily to her feet. Her eyes are running and she sniffles loudly; she makes for a rather pitiable figure. "I'm being pathetic and.. overly-sentimental and I have to go and..." she mumbles, heading for the door. Your heart jumps at her first step towards the exit. You dart forwards and catch her by the arm, and you know that if you were anyone else, you'd be flat on your back by now, but you're not, just because you're you, and she trusts you. You pull her gently back round to face you, but you don't know what to do next. Should you say something encouraging? Something sympathetic? Anything at all?
Instead, you decide to kiss her. She looks at you forlornly and you tilt your head down, and you kiss her.
Too dramatic? Tell me about it... no, literally - tell me about it. Cookies for reviewers. ^^