A/N: 08-27-02: It was Becca's idea for us to write random breakup scenes to
inspire each other. Hmm. I don't know about inspiration, but it sure
brought on a nice depression. LOL. I'm warning you now-this is terribly
Evil. As for the ending... Becca and Dulcey didn't think it should end
there, but Elyse and I thought it should. And I'm the author, so, nyah. :P
Thanks to the three of you for... well, the usual. Love you guys. (I still
expect reviews though, and I don't care that you've already read the whole
thing. :P)
All right, all right. I'll get back to OPOW, I promise.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please don't you cry
I'm still the same girl
Hold me and you'll see...
(DRV)
The match flared momentarily, vibrantly, as it struck the side of the box, and I held it out to the last candle. I placed the apple-scented lump of wax on the nightstand; the rest were arrayed in various places in the loft, creating a vague path from the living room all the way back to my room.
...*Our* room.
Even after all this time, I sometimes forgot to call it our room. But it was.
Six candles in all completed the arrangement-one for each month we'd been sharing a bed. One for each month I awoke every morning to the feel of her curls tangled between my fingers, her head nestled under my chin, her chest rising and falling in perfect sync with my own. One for every month I'd finally known what it was like to be in love.
She was working late that night-she'd specifically not requested the day off; we decided it would be far more rewarding to recreate our first night together. Cheesy; cliched-yes. But no one had to know. We could indulge any fantasies we pleased. The entire evening belonged to us.
And so, for purposes of re-creation, candles technically were not allowed. But I found them in the bathroom, and they smelled nice, so dammit, I used them.
I barely heard the front door click open. I'd been waiting for it for the last hour, having jumped to attention at the slightest breath of air or creaking of furniture. And now, when it actually happened, I practically missed it. I leapt out of my-our-room in a single bound, dropping the match in a wastebasket on the way. She'd promised to come home in whatever outfit she'd worn all night at work. I've been in her dressing room at work. I don't think one single outfit contained enough material to cover so much as a grapefruit... let alone a person.
So... yes. I was a little psyched.
Our eyes met as I reached the living room, and locked briefly, the way they always did. Every time I saw her, even after that new-car smell had faded comfortably from the relationship, I would become momentarily paralyzed, simply at the sight of her. Not the literal sight; but rather what the sight signified: the very reality that she was mine, and I was hers, and I knew I was the luckiest man on earth and didn't deserve an ounce of it but wasn't about to complain.
And so, this brief, fleeting paralysis delayed my realization that she was in fact... not wearing work clothes. The same sweater she'd had on when she left this afternoon-and the same black stretch pants. In fact, the only sign that she'd even been to work at all appeared in the form of glitter just above her eyelids, and a slightly theatrical rose powder dusted onto her cheeks. And of course, that familiar, tired, post-work look.
But the latter seemed far more exaggerated than usual.
A smile worked its way into my stare, shifting it from mere gawking to reverence. She was even more conscious of re-creation than I was-the sweater, the stretch pants-just what she'd worn that night six months ago. I'd... completely forgotten.
"Oh," I observed softly, taking a step toward her. "You're good."
I'd hoped this would incorporate some spirit of the occasion into the blankness her expression held. But, to a disappointment I tried to repress for the sake of the evening, the only change in her face was the addition of bewilderment.
"What?" she asked, slowly setting her purse down on the table.
I finally closed the space between us, slipping my arms around her, fingering the soft gray fluff of her sweater. "This..." I smiled. "The clothes-I'd forgotten."
She smiled back, but it wasn't more than an instinctive reciprocation. "Forgotten what, baby?"
"You *know*..." I prompted, suddenly bashful. "That first night..."
She shook her head. "I'm not sure I-" Our gazes unlocked as she looked past me to the first two flickering flames visible from where we were standing. "Candles?"
I shrugged, leaning in to drop a kiss on her temple. "They smelled nice," I explained lamely, my lips working their way down her neck. "Mm, so do you..."
And before I knew it, she'd removed herself from my embrace-gently enough to soften the disappointment, but with a slowness that was little beyond agonizing. I looked up at her-she stood motionless some three feet away, one hand clasped over her mouth.
"It's Tuesday," she breathed, her voice a crushing meld of realization and apology. Slowly-reluctantly-I nodded. "Baby... I'm so sorry."
My face crumbled; I could tell from the guilt that washed over hers. "You forgot." It wasn't a question.
"Oh, Mark." She was in my arms in an instant, pulling me close to her, her hands clinging loosely to the back of my shirt as her head nuzzled my shoulder. "I've been thinking all day that it's Sunday... I don't... I'm not..."
"It's okay," I assured her. "Really."
She pulled away to search my eyes for everything I knew I could never hide from her, tracing the curves of my face with one delicate finger. "Really?"
I nodded again. She worked weekends. I knew what it was like. You lose track of days. I was being utterly sophomoric about this. It's not as though the night was destined for ruin because one of us had had a faulty mental calendar.
Forcing myself into this optimism had kept me from noticing the mischievous grin that had settled across her lips. "What?" I asked.
Her eyes scrunched into little crescent moons as she erupted in giggles. "You fell for it!" she squealed. "I can't believe you fell for it!"
And however uplifting this sudden display of lightheartedness was, it wasn't exactly the best time for forming coherent thought. Somehow, though... I managed to translate the past few moments into some sort of sense.
That first night, six months ago... it was several weeks after Roger had left, and we'd planned to go out for dinner for absolutely no reason whatsoever. You know; the most special kind of non-occasion. So I cashed in the money my parents had sent me over Christmas and made reservations at a sickeningly upscale spot in midtown.
Mimi wrote down the wrong day on her calendar. By the time she got off work at ten, our reservations were shot and we spent the evening in the loft with pizza and root beer floats and... some hours later... a tangle of clothes and contact and almost blinding passion.
We hadn't left each other's side since.
I looked at her now, everything finally coming together, and let my mouth drop open in shock. "You're mean," I stated matter-of-factly. "You're just evil, you know that?"
"Aw, Marky," she pouted, languidly fingering the first button on her shirt. "I was only trying to re-create our night..."
I gulped as a sliver of black lace flashed beneath the collar of her sweater. "Maybe re-creation is overrated," I offered.
Her voice had dropped to that low, liquid seductiveness I'd heard scarcely more than once or twice outside the bedroom. "Maybe it is," she agreed.
And with that, the remaining sweater buttons seemed to vanish right along with the sweater, revealing... well, practically nothing, as she threw herself into my arms, trapping my mouth in her own. I relinquished control and stumbled backwards, allowing her to lead for the initial bumbling moments as we half-walked, half-fell into the bedroom.
Our lips broke contact as we tumbled onto the bed, and I pulled away to look into her eyes. "Hi."
"Hi," she whispered. "Happy anniversary, baby."
"You too," I smiled down at her, twirling one of her curls around my fingers. She moved to kiss me again, but I gently placed a finger up to her lips. "Wait." I pulled away from the tangle of curls, letting my hand slide down her side until finding hers. As though it were an instinct by now, they immediately intertwined, and she gave my hand a light squeeze. "Do you remember what you told me that night?" I asked softly.
For a moment there was no reaction-and I began to wonder if it was too much to hope that her recollection of that night was as vivid as mine was. But all at once I saw in her eyes a look that went far beyond blankness. She leaned forward, nuzzling my ear, and when words finally fell upon us, her voice was so close to a mere breath that I felt I had dreamed it into existence. "I remember everything about that night," she whispered.
I smiled into her hair. "I took your hand and led you back here, and we just sort of stared at each other... and I asked if you wanted to stop. And you said..."
A glow found its way into her eyes... although maybe it was just the candlelight. Something told me it was more. But that glow almost seemed to drown out her voice entirely. "I said that was just a scared way of asking if I trusted you."
Slowly, I nodded, closing my eyes as I remembered what came next. "You told me there wasn't one moment since the day we met that you didn't trust me. And you said the real question was... did I trust you?"
"And you did," she breathed. That glow was growing brighter with every moment, until she finally cupped her hands around my face, locked our gazes with that single touch. "Mark..." she whispered. "Do you still?"
My heart melted. My brain shut down. Waves of sentiment flooded over me, until all I could form was a muddled utterance of "Every day," before bringing my lips to hers.
There wasn't more than a second of contact before she was pulling away, and that light in her eyes that had filled me with such warmth only moments ago was now sending a chill all the way down my body.
It wasn't a sentimental glow after all. It was tears.
"Mimi..." Half sitting up, I attempted to pull her into my embrace, but she had already crossed the three feet of bed and scrambled to a corner, evading my gaze at all costs, hugging a pillow to her chest as a wall between us.
I wasn't aware that we were in need of a wall.
In the time I had known Mimi, not just as the beautiful stranger from downstairs, my best friend's girlfriend, a mutual acquaintance... but as a lover-my soulmate-I had learned not to question her. She never kept one thought from me; not one impulse, observation, or emotion. And I valued this vulnerability so much that on those very rare occasions when she withdrew, I knew it was with purpose... and I would not pursue it.
But never had those rare occasions been cause for this sick, ominous sensation that was now sending my heart rate to wild speeds.
Timidly, I placed my hand over hers, and she flinched, pulling away almost as a knee-jerk reaction. The tears refused to let up, and although it was against my better judgment, the unfulfilled urge to take her in my arms was beginning to interfere with any rational thinking.
"I can't," she finally choked. "I can't do this."
Words. Signs of life. Of acknowledgment, at least. I scooted toward her and clasped both my hands around hers. But the alertness that my touch had effected only moments ago had dulled to a limp, lifeless inertia. "Mimi..." She shook her head furiously, already knowing what I was about to ask. "Talk to me," I begged. "Please."
"I can't," she repeated, squeezing her pillow into flatness as she pulled it closer to her.
I couldn't take this. I couldn't sit back and watch her like this, and upon accepting this fact, I pushed the blankets aside and pulled her into my arms. She collapsed against me, head buried in my shoulder and hands pressed fearfully, desperately, against my chest. But the tears would not cease-instead, they only snowballed into a complete downpour.
"Mimi," I pleaded helplessly, feeling myself on the verge of a breakdown just at the sight of her state. "Why? Why can't you tell me?"
She peeled herself away from me just enough to meet my eyes, and placed a trembling finger against my lips. "Not yet."
"Why?"
A blink. Another blink. Each one seemed to add just a bit more fear to her face. "I want to remember what it feels like to be in your arms," she whispered.
I blinked, too-perhaps trying to counteract her own. "What-*why*?"
"Because after I tell you, this will be the last time you'll ever hold me."
"Mimi-" She did nothing to silence me. I stopped at my own will. Her eyes were enough. She wasn't joking. I didn't understand the melodrama of this statement, nor did I believe it, and it required great effort to even take it seriously... but I knew she wasn't joking.
And so, for several minutes, we sat there, slumped listlessly against each other; one waiting for the brick to fall; the other waiting to drop it and unable to do so. My mind couldn't possibly grasp that this moment was anywhere near the last time I would hold her, but despite my frantic attempts to ignore her words... I couldn't. Simply having them said aloud- having *anyone* say them aloud-was enough to send chills down my back and a quiver through my embrace.
Slowly, she pulled away, making absolutely sure our eyes were securely locked. Her hands rested shakily on my wrists... and she drew in a dry, silent breath.
"I slept with someone else."
Two words expanded instantly, filling all corners of my mind and shoving away every other thought. Two words: when, and who.
No. There was another word now; only one. *Why?*
This wasn't supposed to happen to us. Not ever. This was... *us*. There was no other word for it. We couldn't even explain it. It was just something we knew existed, when we searched each other's eyes, or when lights and clothes both went off, leaving us in darkness and fire. Things like this didn't happen to us.
My mouth opened in an attempt to let these three recent words escape... but no sound came out.
Instead, images came in.
The park, four months ago, midnight on a Saturday and no one around and a slight drizzle of rain... I remembered how she'd laugh, and the rain would fall onto her lashes and give her eyes that same glow I'd seen just moments ago. How that faded white t-shirt clung to her body and she laughed and told me she'd race me to the tire swing, and if I won, she'd do anything I wanted back at the apartment.
She won; nothing happened back at the apartment. Instead, she did anything I wanted... right there in the park.
"Mark..." Scarcely a breath... just a whisper of air that carried the syllable of my name. I don't think I really heard it.
There was last month, at the little café on 12th. We'd splurged for dinner and halfway through our meal, an army of waiters surrounded our table, placed a cake in front of us, and congratulated us on our fifth wedding anniversary.
It didn't take them long to realize the couple of the hour was seated at the *other* fountain-side table.
We giggled, then sulked, then got completely plastered. Sometime during all of this, I asked her to marry me. She told me I was insane. I told her *I* was insane for loving her this much. She flicked an olive at me. I put ice down her shirt. Shortly after, we were kindly asked never to return to Chez LaMontagne.
"*Please...*" Desperation... growing closer to resignation. It frightened me. I hadn't even spoken a world and already I sensed she was about to give up.
And the letters.
The letters had started from that first night. She wrote the first one after she thought I was asleep. I wasn't really though, and finally sat up to ask her what she was doing, which just about scared her half to death to discover I was awake. She told me she was writing me a letter, and I could see it in the morning. And then she kissed me-the same soft, slow touch that had set off the evening.
When I awoke, the letter was on her pillow. And she... wasn't. And I might have panicked, save for the sound of running water in the bathroom. And I read, fingering her cluttered penmanship with each word, as the warm, wet scent of her shampoo crept through the hallway and into the bedroom.
I wrote her back that night, and left the paper propped against her toothbrush. I've kept every one of her letters since then.
The one ringing in my ears now was written to me after our first official fight. I'd stormed out-such a Roger-esque mechanism; I hated myself for it. But when I returned, she was asleep on the couch, and the note had been left on the table.
'I'm sorry, love,' it said, random letters blurred by teardrops. 'I know you didn't mean any of it. I know I didn't either. Mark, you're the only one I ever want to be with. I never want anyone else's touch, or to fall asleep in anyone else's bed, for as long as I live. I know the last time you ever hold me will be when I take my last breath... and not a moment before. I love you. M.'
"Who?" My voice found its way out, after all.
She flinched, but only I could have seen it. "Aaron."
Aaron. I knew the name. How did I know the name? It was... no. Aaron, her first boyfriend Aaron? I'd heard the story in one of our countless late- night, post-sex talks, curled up in bed in the dark. So countless, in fact, that I had lost track after the first week. But I remembered every story she ever told me. Especially this one... because by the time she was through, she was crying.
They were fifteen and... young, yes, but in love. They were in algebra together and he was honorable and respectful and worshipped her and they were together for two years until he found out he was HIV-positive and by that time it was too late and they were scared to death and began to drift apart and...
Aaron... her first boyfriend Aaron... Aaron who gave her HIV.
I must have looked as horrified as I felt, because her expression melted quickly from devastation to a sickening, unbearable guilt. "Oh, Mark-I-" she choked unsteadily, tears framing every syllable.
"When?"
This was good... I think. I was forming actual sentences. Single-word sentences, perhaps, but nevertheless. My emotions had taken the route of pseudo-rationality, where I was so far detached from the situation that I could actually force myself to hold a conversation, even ask questions.
Her voice was growing softer, fading, lifeless. So was mine. "Two weeks ago. After our fight..."
No... no no no no no.
"...I went to that all-night bookstore, and... he was working there..."
I closed my eyes. She stopped.
We knew each other just that well.
Worse yet, I knew the all-night bookstore. We would go there some Sunday afternoons and read the trashy Harlequin novels in the back corner of the top floor.
The fight had been nothing. And everything. It had been our worst, and I'd naively assumed that very fact would work to bring us closer. But it was obvious now that it had had just the opposite effect.
It was Roger. It was always Roger. I found a letter, and I thought she'd written it to me. But she hadn't. She'd written it to him. It turned out they'd been writing every couple weeks or so for the past six months. And this shouldn't have upset me, because I knew she still cared for him, and I knew there was still guilt inside us both for betraying him.
But I worship her, and I'm insecure, and I've always been afraid of being just the next best thing after Roger. And no amount of her love and support and reassurance had been able to change that. And now... a letter. Innocent, yes-she hadn't been deceiving me or going behind my back. It contained no evidence that she was in love with anyone but me. I never doubted her devotion. But the very intimacy and trust she addressed him with was so similar to that which she used with me... and I simply couldn't bring myself to share that with Roger.
So I'd stormed out, and when I returned, she was gone. But she was back bright and early the next day, with a demeanor so submissive and apologetic that seemed suspicious only now... now, knowing what had happened between the time I stormed out and the time she returned the following morning. And we'd talked, and worked out everything that needed working out.
Except infidelity, apparently.
And only now could I let myself detect that subtle display of reticence she'd exhibited in the past two weeks, since that night.
I hadn't realized I could be in such denial.
She was beside me again, one hand gently reaching up to my face. This was normally a gesture of such tenderness, one I could barely be exposed to without losing all self-control and completely melting into her touch. And even now, it was only with great effort that I remained utterly aware of the fact that her touch had changed. In a short minute, it was no longer what I lived for. It was a curse; a reminder of this minute. And it would always be a reminder. No matter what anyone ever said and did for the rest of our lives... that beauty of her touch was gone. A word or two, and then...
I'd think of her, or speak of her... and wonder what befell that someone I once loved so long ago, so well... [A/N: Shut up. It's tired and I'm late, and this just popped out before I could stop it. :P]
But I was still powerless. I looked into her eyes. Drowned in them. And quickly turned away. I wasn't going to let her do this. If I looked at her, it would all be over. Everything would crumble. But her hand was still on my face. And that was something I couldn't bring myself to push away.
"Mark." I hated that. Any other time, at this level of intimacy, I was 'baby' or 'love' or some other form of endearment. Except when she was afraid. When she was afraid, she always used my name. "I love you," she whispered. "I never stopped, not once-"
I shook my head violently, shaking off her touch, half-chuckling in bitterness, and I could sense a fresh batch of tears trickling down her cheeks. The moonlight from the window reflected off her face, and I looked even further away.
But again, her hand was on my cheek, gently pulling me to face her. "You're the only person who can read my eyes. And if you won't believe me, then you have to believe them. And you know they never lie."
She was completely, infuriatingly right. And even though it no longer mattered... I owed her this much. I turned, and I searched her eyes. For the millionth time. It was like second nature now. And for the first time... I saw nothing beyond fathomless, liquid pools of blackness.
Had I been hypnotized all this time? Is that what the glow was, all along? Was this really what we had come to? Tears and rejected touches and sparkle- less, unreadable eyes?
Her hand was trembling against my cheek. "Tell me what you see."
Silence. My head moved, slowly, from side to side. As much as I was embracing my bitterness... I didn't want to admit this. "I don't know."
I'd never seen her look so hurt as she did when those words left my mouth.
Not after our first fight, or any subsequent ones. Not even that day so long ago, when Roger found us in her room, on the bed, making out like teenagers. Nothing had *happened*... yet... but we both knew it would have if he hadn't walked in on us. He completely flipped, called her several names I can't bear to repeat without flinching, and stormed out. We didn't see him for a week. And the look in her eyes when he left that room... I hadn't ever seen so much pain concentrated in one little person before.
Until now.
Tears weren't even individual anymore; it was simply one continuous stream down the sides of her face, but all was still silent. "Please," she implored. "You have to know."
I jerked away instantly, springing from the bed and planting myself unsteadily at the other end of the room. It was bad timing; I was too weak and too disoriented to be making sudden movements, and my head suddenly felt light. My voice, however, remained intact.
"No," I stated clearly, firmly, amazingly coherent. "No. I don't have to. I don't fucking owe you anything!"
I brought my eyes to hers again, to see that she was slowly inching her way off the bed and toward me. But when our eyes met, she stopped, and retreated. And it scared me to death to think that my gaze was really that petrifying.
"How-what-" I continued, uncontrolled, instantly losing that precious bit of coherency I'd finally managed to achieve. "What were you th-"
"I *wasn't* thinking!"
Even after all this... we could still finish each other's thoughts.
"You weren't thinking? You just marched into the bookstore and there he was, and then a bed appeared out of thin air and I just completely vanished from your memory?"
She inhaled a shaky breath. "Mark... you never left my mind, not for one second."
"Oh, now that's comforting!"
"That's not what I-"
"Mimi, this is *us*!" I finally cried, my eyes burning with the first symptom of tears, and my voice losing all strength. "This was never supposed to happen to us."
God only knows what made her take this as a clue to close the space of darkness between us, but in a blink she was off the bed and by my side. No sooner had her hand made contact with the fabric of my sweater than I yanked it away, backing against the wall.
"Don't," I whispered. "Don't. You can't just-*do* this, and then still think you can touch me..." It was less eloquent than I would have liked, but we both knew exactly what I meant. That implicit understanding between us was one of our few remaining connections that hadn't been shattered in the last five minutes.
Her hands fell limply to her sides, creating a rather awkward picture-me, flattened fearfully against the wall as though by shackles; and her, two feet away and not even daring to touch the air around me. And yet I couldn't escape.
Those dark, unreadable eyes stared at me. They weren't really unreadable; not entirely. In fact, they spoke volumes. Just not the volumes I was looking for. What came from that gaze now held no innocence, begged no pity, and boasted none of the dignity I knew she possessed. It only reminded me of the girl I'd known before she was my lover. She no longer appeared to me as the passionate, devoted woman who left her whole world behind to be with me.
Now... she was the lonely, promiscuous girl who cheated on her boyfriend with his best friend.
"I should have known..." I mumbled.
"What?"
I didn't realize I'd said it out loud... but maybe it was better this way. "I should have expected this," I said slowly, pondering the theory to myself, with little concern for the fact that there was another person in the room. "I mean... just look how we started."
A full minute must have passed before I remembered there *was* another person in the room. But the minute I turned back to her, the impact of my words hit me. And from the look on her face, they'd already hit her too. Hard.
A split second later would have found me apologizing. But it was too late.
"Oh, my God," she breathed.
I waited... for a defense, a rebuttal, anything. But she simply crumbled. Took those two steps back to the bed, collapsed in a crumpled, silent- teared, pillow-hugging heap... and was still.
I couldn't hate her. I was trying so hard, and what was most infuriating of all was that I didn't even *want* to try. She was the love of my life. I couldn't help it. I was hurt, practically destroyed... but still in love as I had ever been. And I couldn't do this to her. My feet dragged me over to the bed beside her, and I sat down stiffly on her side of the mattress, seeing as she was occupying mine.
"I-I didn't mean it like that."
Silence.
"...Meems?" It was too late to catch myself-but I winced the minute it was out of my mouth. This was not the time for nicknames.
She rolled over on her pillow, stained and dampened, and looked up at me with those big, questioning eyes-eyes tainted by makeup and tears and chaos and pain... but I could still see through them. Past all that, I was convinced there was still a tiny part of the girl I'd fallen in love with. The girl who'd walk into porn shops at 9am on a Sunday morning and read little books about all the interesting ways she could wake me up. The girl who'd leave M&Ms on my pillow before going to work, with a note saying that if I waited up for her, I'd get something even yummier when she got home.
Here, now... part of her was still the same girl. Wasn't it?
"Is that how you've always seen me?" she asked. "Just as a..."
It was so timid-not an accusation. It wasn't really even a solid question. She knew she didn't have any right to be questioning me at this point. It was a tentative, cautious wondering, not even expecting a response beyond anger.
But I loved her. And I couldn't let her believe this.
"No," I whispered. "Never."
It was too much-my own battle between hating her, which I couldn't bring myself to do, and loving her, which was proving equally impossible. The weight of it all fell upon me, and I in turn fell back onto the bed, half- propped against two forgotten pillows... and stared fixedly at the black ceiling.
It wasn't until she stirred that I realized how close we were. And instead of forcing a distance between us, the space seemed to be getting smaller. I couldn't bring myself to look down; instead I closed my eyes and remained motionless. A few more seconds found her inching her way toward me, and before I realized it, her hand brushed mine, and her head was resting against my shoulder.
I opened my eyes. She was crying.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."
And she kept saying the words, over and over, as my sweater became slowly soaked in her tears. She scooted herself all the way over to my side, until she could lay her head on my stomach, curled up in a ball, fingers clinging helplessly to my sweater.
Maybe. Maybe if we stayed like this, it would all disappear. We could erase it.
I felt her breath through the thin fabric of my sweater before the words even formed. And when they did, they weren't much more than the breath. "Mark." Silence. I just... couldn't answer. "I need you to hold me."
My heart ached, but my arms still rested, paralyzed, by my sides. I wanted to move. I wanted to put my arms around her, as I did every time she cried. It never mattered what she was distraught about. It was just something that passed between us-she could cry, and I would hold her.
But now...
"I can't."
Silence-not even the warmth of her breath through my sweater.
"I know."
~fin~
All right, all right. I'll get back to OPOW, I promise.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please don't you cry
I'm still the same girl
Hold me and you'll see...
(DRV)
The match flared momentarily, vibrantly, as it struck the side of the box, and I held it out to the last candle. I placed the apple-scented lump of wax on the nightstand; the rest were arrayed in various places in the loft, creating a vague path from the living room all the way back to my room.
...*Our* room.
Even after all this time, I sometimes forgot to call it our room. But it was.
Six candles in all completed the arrangement-one for each month we'd been sharing a bed. One for each month I awoke every morning to the feel of her curls tangled between my fingers, her head nestled under my chin, her chest rising and falling in perfect sync with my own. One for every month I'd finally known what it was like to be in love.
She was working late that night-she'd specifically not requested the day off; we decided it would be far more rewarding to recreate our first night together. Cheesy; cliched-yes. But no one had to know. We could indulge any fantasies we pleased. The entire evening belonged to us.
And so, for purposes of re-creation, candles technically were not allowed. But I found them in the bathroom, and they smelled nice, so dammit, I used them.
I barely heard the front door click open. I'd been waiting for it for the last hour, having jumped to attention at the slightest breath of air or creaking of furniture. And now, when it actually happened, I practically missed it. I leapt out of my-our-room in a single bound, dropping the match in a wastebasket on the way. She'd promised to come home in whatever outfit she'd worn all night at work. I've been in her dressing room at work. I don't think one single outfit contained enough material to cover so much as a grapefruit... let alone a person.
So... yes. I was a little psyched.
Our eyes met as I reached the living room, and locked briefly, the way they always did. Every time I saw her, even after that new-car smell had faded comfortably from the relationship, I would become momentarily paralyzed, simply at the sight of her. Not the literal sight; but rather what the sight signified: the very reality that she was mine, and I was hers, and I knew I was the luckiest man on earth and didn't deserve an ounce of it but wasn't about to complain.
And so, this brief, fleeting paralysis delayed my realization that she was in fact... not wearing work clothes. The same sweater she'd had on when she left this afternoon-and the same black stretch pants. In fact, the only sign that she'd even been to work at all appeared in the form of glitter just above her eyelids, and a slightly theatrical rose powder dusted onto her cheeks. And of course, that familiar, tired, post-work look.
But the latter seemed far more exaggerated than usual.
A smile worked its way into my stare, shifting it from mere gawking to reverence. She was even more conscious of re-creation than I was-the sweater, the stretch pants-just what she'd worn that night six months ago. I'd... completely forgotten.
"Oh," I observed softly, taking a step toward her. "You're good."
I'd hoped this would incorporate some spirit of the occasion into the blankness her expression held. But, to a disappointment I tried to repress for the sake of the evening, the only change in her face was the addition of bewilderment.
"What?" she asked, slowly setting her purse down on the table.
I finally closed the space between us, slipping my arms around her, fingering the soft gray fluff of her sweater. "This..." I smiled. "The clothes-I'd forgotten."
She smiled back, but it wasn't more than an instinctive reciprocation. "Forgotten what, baby?"
"You *know*..." I prompted, suddenly bashful. "That first night..."
She shook her head. "I'm not sure I-" Our gazes unlocked as she looked past me to the first two flickering flames visible from where we were standing. "Candles?"
I shrugged, leaning in to drop a kiss on her temple. "They smelled nice," I explained lamely, my lips working their way down her neck. "Mm, so do you..."
And before I knew it, she'd removed herself from my embrace-gently enough to soften the disappointment, but with a slowness that was little beyond agonizing. I looked up at her-she stood motionless some three feet away, one hand clasped over her mouth.
"It's Tuesday," she breathed, her voice a crushing meld of realization and apology. Slowly-reluctantly-I nodded. "Baby... I'm so sorry."
My face crumbled; I could tell from the guilt that washed over hers. "You forgot." It wasn't a question.
"Oh, Mark." She was in my arms in an instant, pulling me close to her, her hands clinging loosely to the back of my shirt as her head nuzzled my shoulder. "I've been thinking all day that it's Sunday... I don't... I'm not..."
"It's okay," I assured her. "Really."
She pulled away to search my eyes for everything I knew I could never hide from her, tracing the curves of my face with one delicate finger. "Really?"
I nodded again. She worked weekends. I knew what it was like. You lose track of days. I was being utterly sophomoric about this. It's not as though the night was destined for ruin because one of us had had a faulty mental calendar.
Forcing myself into this optimism had kept me from noticing the mischievous grin that had settled across her lips. "What?" I asked.
Her eyes scrunched into little crescent moons as she erupted in giggles. "You fell for it!" she squealed. "I can't believe you fell for it!"
And however uplifting this sudden display of lightheartedness was, it wasn't exactly the best time for forming coherent thought. Somehow, though... I managed to translate the past few moments into some sort of sense.
That first night, six months ago... it was several weeks after Roger had left, and we'd planned to go out for dinner for absolutely no reason whatsoever. You know; the most special kind of non-occasion. So I cashed in the money my parents had sent me over Christmas and made reservations at a sickeningly upscale spot in midtown.
Mimi wrote down the wrong day on her calendar. By the time she got off work at ten, our reservations were shot and we spent the evening in the loft with pizza and root beer floats and... some hours later... a tangle of clothes and contact and almost blinding passion.
We hadn't left each other's side since.
I looked at her now, everything finally coming together, and let my mouth drop open in shock. "You're mean," I stated matter-of-factly. "You're just evil, you know that?"
"Aw, Marky," she pouted, languidly fingering the first button on her shirt. "I was only trying to re-create our night..."
I gulped as a sliver of black lace flashed beneath the collar of her sweater. "Maybe re-creation is overrated," I offered.
Her voice had dropped to that low, liquid seductiveness I'd heard scarcely more than once or twice outside the bedroom. "Maybe it is," she agreed.
And with that, the remaining sweater buttons seemed to vanish right along with the sweater, revealing... well, practically nothing, as she threw herself into my arms, trapping my mouth in her own. I relinquished control and stumbled backwards, allowing her to lead for the initial bumbling moments as we half-walked, half-fell into the bedroom.
Our lips broke contact as we tumbled onto the bed, and I pulled away to look into her eyes. "Hi."
"Hi," she whispered. "Happy anniversary, baby."
"You too," I smiled down at her, twirling one of her curls around my fingers. She moved to kiss me again, but I gently placed a finger up to her lips. "Wait." I pulled away from the tangle of curls, letting my hand slide down her side until finding hers. As though it were an instinct by now, they immediately intertwined, and she gave my hand a light squeeze. "Do you remember what you told me that night?" I asked softly.
For a moment there was no reaction-and I began to wonder if it was too much to hope that her recollection of that night was as vivid as mine was. But all at once I saw in her eyes a look that went far beyond blankness. She leaned forward, nuzzling my ear, and when words finally fell upon us, her voice was so close to a mere breath that I felt I had dreamed it into existence. "I remember everything about that night," she whispered.
I smiled into her hair. "I took your hand and led you back here, and we just sort of stared at each other... and I asked if you wanted to stop. And you said..."
A glow found its way into her eyes... although maybe it was just the candlelight. Something told me it was more. But that glow almost seemed to drown out her voice entirely. "I said that was just a scared way of asking if I trusted you."
Slowly, I nodded, closing my eyes as I remembered what came next. "You told me there wasn't one moment since the day we met that you didn't trust me. And you said the real question was... did I trust you?"
"And you did," she breathed. That glow was growing brighter with every moment, until she finally cupped her hands around my face, locked our gazes with that single touch. "Mark..." she whispered. "Do you still?"
My heart melted. My brain shut down. Waves of sentiment flooded over me, until all I could form was a muddled utterance of "Every day," before bringing my lips to hers.
There wasn't more than a second of contact before she was pulling away, and that light in her eyes that had filled me with such warmth only moments ago was now sending a chill all the way down my body.
It wasn't a sentimental glow after all. It was tears.
"Mimi..." Half sitting up, I attempted to pull her into my embrace, but she had already crossed the three feet of bed and scrambled to a corner, evading my gaze at all costs, hugging a pillow to her chest as a wall between us.
I wasn't aware that we were in need of a wall.
In the time I had known Mimi, not just as the beautiful stranger from downstairs, my best friend's girlfriend, a mutual acquaintance... but as a lover-my soulmate-I had learned not to question her. She never kept one thought from me; not one impulse, observation, or emotion. And I valued this vulnerability so much that on those very rare occasions when she withdrew, I knew it was with purpose... and I would not pursue it.
But never had those rare occasions been cause for this sick, ominous sensation that was now sending my heart rate to wild speeds.
Timidly, I placed my hand over hers, and she flinched, pulling away almost as a knee-jerk reaction. The tears refused to let up, and although it was against my better judgment, the unfulfilled urge to take her in my arms was beginning to interfere with any rational thinking.
"I can't," she finally choked. "I can't do this."
Words. Signs of life. Of acknowledgment, at least. I scooted toward her and clasped both my hands around hers. But the alertness that my touch had effected only moments ago had dulled to a limp, lifeless inertia. "Mimi..." She shook her head furiously, already knowing what I was about to ask. "Talk to me," I begged. "Please."
"I can't," she repeated, squeezing her pillow into flatness as she pulled it closer to her.
I couldn't take this. I couldn't sit back and watch her like this, and upon accepting this fact, I pushed the blankets aside and pulled her into my arms. She collapsed against me, head buried in my shoulder and hands pressed fearfully, desperately, against my chest. But the tears would not cease-instead, they only snowballed into a complete downpour.
"Mimi," I pleaded helplessly, feeling myself on the verge of a breakdown just at the sight of her state. "Why? Why can't you tell me?"
She peeled herself away from me just enough to meet my eyes, and placed a trembling finger against my lips. "Not yet."
"Why?"
A blink. Another blink. Each one seemed to add just a bit more fear to her face. "I want to remember what it feels like to be in your arms," she whispered.
I blinked, too-perhaps trying to counteract her own. "What-*why*?"
"Because after I tell you, this will be the last time you'll ever hold me."
"Mimi-" She did nothing to silence me. I stopped at my own will. Her eyes were enough. She wasn't joking. I didn't understand the melodrama of this statement, nor did I believe it, and it required great effort to even take it seriously... but I knew she wasn't joking.
And so, for several minutes, we sat there, slumped listlessly against each other; one waiting for the brick to fall; the other waiting to drop it and unable to do so. My mind couldn't possibly grasp that this moment was anywhere near the last time I would hold her, but despite my frantic attempts to ignore her words... I couldn't. Simply having them said aloud- having *anyone* say them aloud-was enough to send chills down my back and a quiver through my embrace.
Slowly, she pulled away, making absolutely sure our eyes were securely locked. Her hands rested shakily on my wrists... and she drew in a dry, silent breath.
"I slept with someone else."
Two words expanded instantly, filling all corners of my mind and shoving away every other thought. Two words: when, and who.
No. There was another word now; only one. *Why?*
This wasn't supposed to happen to us. Not ever. This was... *us*. There was no other word for it. We couldn't even explain it. It was just something we knew existed, when we searched each other's eyes, or when lights and clothes both went off, leaving us in darkness and fire. Things like this didn't happen to us.
My mouth opened in an attempt to let these three recent words escape... but no sound came out.
Instead, images came in.
The park, four months ago, midnight on a Saturday and no one around and a slight drizzle of rain... I remembered how she'd laugh, and the rain would fall onto her lashes and give her eyes that same glow I'd seen just moments ago. How that faded white t-shirt clung to her body and she laughed and told me she'd race me to the tire swing, and if I won, she'd do anything I wanted back at the apartment.
She won; nothing happened back at the apartment. Instead, she did anything I wanted... right there in the park.
"Mark..." Scarcely a breath... just a whisper of air that carried the syllable of my name. I don't think I really heard it.
There was last month, at the little café on 12th. We'd splurged for dinner and halfway through our meal, an army of waiters surrounded our table, placed a cake in front of us, and congratulated us on our fifth wedding anniversary.
It didn't take them long to realize the couple of the hour was seated at the *other* fountain-side table.
We giggled, then sulked, then got completely plastered. Sometime during all of this, I asked her to marry me. She told me I was insane. I told her *I* was insane for loving her this much. She flicked an olive at me. I put ice down her shirt. Shortly after, we were kindly asked never to return to Chez LaMontagne.
"*Please...*" Desperation... growing closer to resignation. It frightened me. I hadn't even spoken a world and already I sensed she was about to give up.
And the letters.
The letters had started from that first night. She wrote the first one after she thought I was asleep. I wasn't really though, and finally sat up to ask her what she was doing, which just about scared her half to death to discover I was awake. She told me she was writing me a letter, and I could see it in the morning. And then she kissed me-the same soft, slow touch that had set off the evening.
When I awoke, the letter was on her pillow. And she... wasn't. And I might have panicked, save for the sound of running water in the bathroom. And I read, fingering her cluttered penmanship with each word, as the warm, wet scent of her shampoo crept through the hallway and into the bedroom.
I wrote her back that night, and left the paper propped against her toothbrush. I've kept every one of her letters since then.
The one ringing in my ears now was written to me after our first official fight. I'd stormed out-such a Roger-esque mechanism; I hated myself for it. But when I returned, she was asleep on the couch, and the note had been left on the table.
'I'm sorry, love,' it said, random letters blurred by teardrops. 'I know you didn't mean any of it. I know I didn't either. Mark, you're the only one I ever want to be with. I never want anyone else's touch, or to fall asleep in anyone else's bed, for as long as I live. I know the last time you ever hold me will be when I take my last breath... and not a moment before. I love you. M.'
"Who?" My voice found its way out, after all.
She flinched, but only I could have seen it. "Aaron."
Aaron. I knew the name. How did I know the name? It was... no. Aaron, her first boyfriend Aaron? I'd heard the story in one of our countless late- night, post-sex talks, curled up in bed in the dark. So countless, in fact, that I had lost track after the first week. But I remembered every story she ever told me. Especially this one... because by the time she was through, she was crying.
They were fifteen and... young, yes, but in love. They were in algebra together and he was honorable and respectful and worshipped her and they were together for two years until he found out he was HIV-positive and by that time it was too late and they were scared to death and began to drift apart and...
Aaron... her first boyfriend Aaron... Aaron who gave her HIV.
I must have looked as horrified as I felt, because her expression melted quickly from devastation to a sickening, unbearable guilt. "Oh, Mark-I-" she choked unsteadily, tears framing every syllable.
"When?"
This was good... I think. I was forming actual sentences. Single-word sentences, perhaps, but nevertheless. My emotions had taken the route of pseudo-rationality, where I was so far detached from the situation that I could actually force myself to hold a conversation, even ask questions.
Her voice was growing softer, fading, lifeless. So was mine. "Two weeks ago. After our fight..."
No... no no no no no.
"...I went to that all-night bookstore, and... he was working there..."
I closed my eyes. She stopped.
We knew each other just that well.
Worse yet, I knew the all-night bookstore. We would go there some Sunday afternoons and read the trashy Harlequin novels in the back corner of the top floor.
The fight had been nothing. And everything. It had been our worst, and I'd naively assumed that very fact would work to bring us closer. But it was obvious now that it had had just the opposite effect.
It was Roger. It was always Roger. I found a letter, and I thought she'd written it to me. But she hadn't. She'd written it to him. It turned out they'd been writing every couple weeks or so for the past six months. And this shouldn't have upset me, because I knew she still cared for him, and I knew there was still guilt inside us both for betraying him.
But I worship her, and I'm insecure, and I've always been afraid of being just the next best thing after Roger. And no amount of her love and support and reassurance had been able to change that. And now... a letter. Innocent, yes-she hadn't been deceiving me or going behind my back. It contained no evidence that she was in love with anyone but me. I never doubted her devotion. But the very intimacy and trust she addressed him with was so similar to that which she used with me... and I simply couldn't bring myself to share that with Roger.
So I'd stormed out, and when I returned, she was gone. But she was back bright and early the next day, with a demeanor so submissive and apologetic that seemed suspicious only now... now, knowing what had happened between the time I stormed out and the time she returned the following morning. And we'd talked, and worked out everything that needed working out.
Except infidelity, apparently.
And only now could I let myself detect that subtle display of reticence she'd exhibited in the past two weeks, since that night.
I hadn't realized I could be in such denial.
She was beside me again, one hand gently reaching up to my face. This was normally a gesture of such tenderness, one I could barely be exposed to without losing all self-control and completely melting into her touch. And even now, it was only with great effort that I remained utterly aware of the fact that her touch had changed. In a short minute, it was no longer what I lived for. It was a curse; a reminder of this minute. And it would always be a reminder. No matter what anyone ever said and did for the rest of our lives... that beauty of her touch was gone. A word or two, and then...
I'd think of her, or speak of her... and wonder what befell that someone I once loved so long ago, so well... [A/N: Shut up. It's tired and I'm late, and this just popped out before I could stop it. :P]
But I was still powerless. I looked into her eyes. Drowned in them. And quickly turned away. I wasn't going to let her do this. If I looked at her, it would all be over. Everything would crumble. But her hand was still on my face. And that was something I couldn't bring myself to push away.
"Mark." I hated that. Any other time, at this level of intimacy, I was 'baby' or 'love' or some other form of endearment. Except when she was afraid. When she was afraid, she always used my name. "I love you," she whispered. "I never stopped, not once-"
I shook my head violently, shaking off her touch, half-chuckling in bitterness, and I could sense a fresh batch of tears trickling down her cheeks. The moonlight from the window reflected off her face, and I looked even further away.
But again, her hand was on my cheek, gently pulling me to face her. "You're the only person who can read my eyes. And if you won't believe me, then you have to believe them. And you know they never lie."
She was completely, infuriatingly right. And even though it no longer mattered... I owed her this much. I turned, and I searched her eyes. For the millionth time. It was like second nature now. And for the first time... I saw nothing beyond fathomless, liquid pools of blackness.
Had I been hypnotized all this time? Is that what the glow was, all along? Was this really what we had come to? Tears and rejected touches and sparkle- less, unreadable eyes?
Her hand was trembling against my cheek. "Tell me what you see."
Silence. My head moved, slowly, from side to side. As much as I was embracing my bitterness... I didn't want to admit this. "I don't know."
I'd never seen her look so hurt as she did when those words left my mouth.
Not after our first fight, or any subsequent ones. Not even that day so long ago, when Roger found us in her room, on the bed, making out like teenagers. Nothing had *happened*... yet... but we both knew it would have if he hadn't walked in on us. He completely flipped, called her several names I can't bear to repeat without flinching, and stormed out. We didn't see him for a week. And the look in her eyes when he left that room... I hadn't ever seen so much pain concentrated in one little person before.
Until now.
Tears weren't even individual anymore; it was simply one continuous stream down the sides of her face, but all was still silent. "Please," she implored. "You have to know."
I jerked away instantly, springing from the bed and planting myself unsteadily at the other end of the room. It was bad timing; I was too weak and too disoriented to be making sudden movements, and my head suddenly felt light. My voice, however, remained intact.
"No," I stated clearly, firmly, amazingly coherent. "No. I don't have to. I don't fucking owe you anything!"
I brought my eyes to hers again, to see that she was slowly inching her way off the bed and toward me. But when our eyes met, she stopped, and retreated. And it scared me to death to think that my gaze was really that petrifying.
"How-what-" I continued, uncontrolled, instantly losing that precious bit of coherency I'd finally managed to achieve. "What were you th-"
"I *wasn't* thinking!"
Even after all this... we could still finish each other's thoughts.
"You weren't thinking? You just marched into the bookstore and there he was, and then a bed appeared out of thin air and I just completely vanished from your memory?"
She inhaled a shaky breath. "Mark... you never left my mind, not for one second."
"Oh, now that's comforting!"
"That's not what I-"
"Mimi, this is *us*!" I finally cried, my eyes burning with the first symptom of tears, and my voice losing all strength. "This was never supposed to happen to us."
God only knows what made her take this as a clue to close the space of darkness between us, but in a blink she was off the bed and by my side. No sooner had her hand made contact with the fabric of my sweater than I yanked it away, backing against the wall.
"Don't," I whispered. "Don't. You can't just-*do* this, and then still think you can touch me..." It was less eloquent than I would have liked, but we both knew exactly what I meant. That implicit understanding between us was one of our few remaining connections that hadn't been shattered in the last five minutes.
Her hands fell limply to her sides, creating a rather awkward picture-me, flattened fearfully against the wall as though by shackles; and her, two feet away and not even daring to touch the air around me. And yet I couldn't escape.
Those dark, unreadable eyes stared at me. They weren't really unreadable; not entirely. In fact, they spoke volumes. Just not the volumes I was looking for. What came from that gaze now held no innocence, begged no pity, and boasted none of the dignity I knew she possessed. It only reminded me of the girl I'd known before she was my lover. She no longer appeared to me as the passionate, devoted woman who left her whole world behind to be with me.
Now... she was the lonely, promiscuous girl who cheated on her boyfriend with his best friend.
"I should have known..." I mumbled.
"What?"
I didn't realize I'd said it out loud... but maybe it was better this way. "I should have expected this," I said slowly, pondering the theory to myself, with little concern for the fact that there was another person in the room. "I mean... just look how we started."
A full minute must have passed before I remembered there *was* another person in the room. But the minute I turned back to her, the impact of my words hit me. And from the look on her face, they'd already hit her too. Hard.
A split second later would have found me apologizing. But it was too late.
"Oh, my God," she breathed.
I waited... for a defense, a rebuttal, anything. But she simply crumbled. Took those two steps back to the bed, collapsed in a crumpled, silent- teared, pillow-hugging heap... and was still.
I couldn't hate her. I was trying so hard, and what was most infuriating of all was that I didn't even *want* to try. She was the love of my life. I couldn't help it. I was hurt, practically destroyed... but still in love as I had ever been. And I couldn't do this to her. My feet dragged me over to the bed beside her, and I sat down stiffly on her side of the mattress, seeing as she was occupying mine.
"I-I didn't mean it like that."
Silence.
"...Meems?" It was too late to catch myself-but I winced the minute it was out of my mouth. This was not the time for nicknames.
She rolled over on her pillow, stained and dampened, and looked up at me with those big, questioning eyes-eyes tainted by makeup and tears and chaos and pain... but I could still see through them. Past all that, I was convinced there was still a tiny part of the girl I'd fallen in love with. The girl who'd walk into porn shops at 9am on a Sunday morning and read little books about all the interesting ways she could wake me up. The girl who'd leave M&Ms on my pillow before going to work, with a note saying that if I waited up for her, I'd get something even yummier when she got home.
Here, now... part of her was still the same girl. Wasn't it?
"Is that how you've always seen me?" she asked. "Just as a..."
It was so timid-not an accusation. It wasn't really even a solid question. She knew she didn't have any right to be questioning me at this point. It was a tentative, cautious wondering, not even expecting a response beyond anger.
But I loved her. And I couldn't let her believe this.
"No," I whispered. "Never."
It was too much-my own battle between hating her, which I couldn't bring myself to do, and loving her, which was proving equally impossible. The weight of it all fell upon me, and I in turn fell back onto the bed, half- propped against two forgotten pillows... and stared fixedly at the black ceiling.
It wasn't until she stirred that I realized how close we were. And instead of forcing a distance between us, the space seemed to be getting smaller. I couldn't bring myself to look down; instead I closed my eyes and remained motionless. A few more seconds found her inching her way toward me, and before I realized it, her hand brushed mine, and her head was resting against my shoulder.
I opened my eyes. She was crying.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..."
And she kept saying the words, over and over, as my sweater became slowly soaked in her tears. She scooted herself all the way over to my side, until she could lay her head on my stomach, curled up in a ball, fingers clinging helplessly to my sweater.
Maybe. Maybe if we stayed like this, it would all disappear. We could erase it.
I felt her breath through the thin fabric of my sweater before the words even formed. And when they did, they weren't much more than the breath. "Mark." Silence. I just... couldn't answer. "I need you to hold me."
My heart ached, but my arms still rested, paralyzed, by my sides. I wanted to move. I wanted to put my arms around her, as I did every time she cried. It never mattered what she was distraught about. It was just something that passed between us-she could cry, and I would hold her.
But now...
"I can't."
Silence-not even the warmth of her breath through my sweater.
"I know."
~fin~