la douleur exquise
(n.) the exquisite pain of wanting the affection of someone you know you can never have
|French|
And just like that, just like always, he's caught. She smiles one of her ever so slow smiles that reach her eyes even before her lips are parted, the kind he's been trying to erase out of his mind ever since first seeing it. While doing that, she twists her head a little to the side, revealing a small birthmark just beneath her ear, something you'd never notice if you didn't spend your entire time doing things like studying her profile from the seat next to hers.
He doesn't even know why she is laughing but he doesn't care. Whatever the reason is, he wants it to never stop, never end so that she can keep on smiling forever and then some more. And then he realizes it must be because of some stupid little thing he said because there's no one around. They're all alone. He takes a quick look around the room just to make sure and then returns his entire focus on her. And yes, the look in her eyes confirms his suspicion. She is laughing because of him. He made her smile and oh god, even though it is by far not the first time he's done that, it's always, always like a punch into his gut, stealing all the air from his lungs because for a second – or maybe two – he made her happy.
And that alone is more than he could ever hope for and then again he thinks how stupid he is to depend on something as ridiculous as a smile from a certain woman when he can have any other woman in the city, screw that,the country, with just a quick phone call. Why does this small smile make him so embarrassingly happy? Deep down he knows why, but he cannot acknowledge that feeling because if he did, he'd have to face and deal with the consequences of admitting that to himself.
If he did that, he'd have a whole cascade of feelings come crashing down on him and that scares him. For the first time in his life, he is actually scared of something. So he doesn't confront himself with what he's feeling and instead just looks at her whenever he thinks it's safe to do so.
And right now it is, because he just said something else, not even remotely intellectual and witty but she is still shaking her head in silent laughter and holds her right hand balled to a fist in front of her mouth to stifle the sound that comes out of it, even though that doesn't make sense because there is literally no one else in this room besides them. And when she does that little thing of hiding her mouth, her hair falls gently forward to cover half of her face and he is so mesmerized by the softness and the imagination of him running his fingers through the strands of her hair that he gets lost for a second.
But then she recovers herself, coughs and motions to the monitor of her computer, signalling him that she should be working and, as if to underline her gesture, she actually says, "You know, I should be finishing this." She gives him a look, as if she was apologizing for the inconvenience that is her work and he grins at her. "You're right, I shouldn't keep you from important things," he replies and she nods. And again he can only think how impeccable her whole profile his, from her jawline to her cute little nose but he cannot, cannot, cannot act on those feelings. So, he just keeps on ignoring them and decides that watching her from afar is enough for now.
:fin: