Behind Mirrors
When it started, it was passionate. They were excited. It was new for both of them, and it was fuelled by a fiery desire that burned inside their veins. It was about muscles and contact and pressure. It was physical, and it was blazing. When it started, it was all about the pounding of their hearts and the slickness of their skin and the heat that passed between their bodies and the adrenaline of finding each other in the shadows.
A little down the line, it was gentle. They cared for each other, in more ways than they'd meant to. It was something that was more than physicality, more than simple satisfaction. It became rooted in their chests; it tied itself up in their heartstrings and echoed in the hollows of their minds. It was pushing hair behind ears and seeing the flecks of color in each other's eyes. It was about the delicate fingertips and the nervous smiles and and the sound of each other's pulse in the aftermath.
They were a mess of secrets and deceit, but it didn't matter because at least they had found each other.
When it started, they tangled themselves in a world they imagined for themselves and convinced each other that it wasn't important. They hid from the world under the impenetrable barrier of sweat and sheets. When it started, they told themselves it didn't mean anything. It was just a meeting of lips and legs and hands. It was just an escape from the emptiness that weighed on their shoulders. When it started, it was merely an undeniable attraction.
A little down the line, they lost themselves in each other. They exposed their hearts, covered in bruises, little by little, until all they had to do was reach out and take the other's, in exchange for their own. It became about closeness, physical and otherwise. It was watching each other's eyelashes, and it was making promises they knew they'd never keep but wanted to believe that they could. They admitted to themselves, but never to each other, that what they had was everything.
They held each other in the dark, because in the daylight, they were no more than strangers wearing the same mask.
It didn't take long for both of them to notice the other slipping into darkness.
They became victims of guilt and desperation. They never found an answer to the silent question that plagued them, always left unasked. They hated themselves for what they'd become so intensely dependant on.
They loved each other more than they could have imagined loving anyone.
They did what they could to save each other.
Alison found solace in alcohol, in drowning herself in amber liquid. (And red and white and clear.) It was an easy false comfort when she returned to a house that reminded her that every day she slipped farther from the perfection she'd chased all her life. When she was drunk she forgot about the fact that the only thing in her life that made sense anymore left her disheveled and ashamed. She looked into the face of a man who no longer held her heart and felt the edge of her cliff crawl nearer. But she had people to take care of, so she drank, and it made her pain tolerable.
Beth manipulated herself into believing that the little white tablets and capsules she swallowed didn't make things worse. She told herself that the defeat that swirled around in her mind could be kept at bay if she didn't feel it. So she swallowed everything she could get out of the little orange bottles. She thought that it was better, when she was alone, not to feel anything.
Their routine was structured systematically. That was how they functioned. That was the first thing they came to appreciate about each other.
On Thursday nights, when Alison's husband was out late with clients, Beth drove her car to Scarborough and parked around a tree-lined corner. Alison put her kids to bed, armed the home security system, and crept out of the house to the dark vehicle that waited for her. They puttered discreetly out of the neighborhood and made their way to the field they'd used for target practice when Alison asked to be taught how to use a gun. Some nights they stayed in the car, all wandering hands and foggy windows. Some nights they just sat in silence. Some nights Beth pulled a blanket out of the trunk so they could lie out and look at the sky; Alison always smiled to herself at the classical romance of it.
Alison lolled her head to the side to peer at Beth through the darkness that fell over them like a sheen of perspiration. The night was warm; a gentle breeze swept the air. Alison's fingers were intertwined with Beth's. Beth's eyes were closed, and she breathed, almost purposefully, through her nose.
Alison would never understand why Beth - her eyes, her lips, her profile - could be so beautiful, yet when she saw her reflection in the mirror, all she saw was a face.
They were identical, that much was without question, but for whatever reason, when she'd met Beth, the policewoman had given their shared features a certain sparkle, a certain life, that Alison never found in her own. Her heart jerked with a warmth that she was rather unaccustomed to when she looked at her.
But more recently, the light in her eyes had grown dim, and she was painfully aware of the cause.
She licked her lips. Her voice was unexpectedly hoarse when she whispered Beth's name.
Beth's eyes opened slowly. She turned her head to face Alison, and her hair splayed over the blanket. Their faces were close enough that she could feel the slight shift in Alison's breathing. She brought her hand up to toy with Alison's hair. "What is it, Ali?" Alison had closed her eyes. Beth noticed a slight tremble in her lip and a glistening moisture protruding from beneath her eyelids. "Ali, what's going on?"
Alison took a shaky breath and opened her eyes again to meet Beth's. A smouldering look passed between them. She mentally shook her head at herself when a tear leaked from her eye. "It's just... it's not fair. It wasn't supposed to be like this. I'm married, I have a life! And you... You make me happier than I've ever been... but even when we're lying next to each other, I can feel you slipping away."
"No, Ali..." Beth felt her heart clench as her lover's forehead scrunched and tears rolled freely down her cheeks.
Alison continued as if Beth hadn't spoken. Her voice was thick, but the words spilled from her mouth regardless. "And I've tried so hard not to need you. But you're... inside me. You've gone and burrowed a hole in my goddamn heart, and I can feel you. I can feel you fading. But you can't do that, okay? Because if you're gone, then there's just this hole where you used to be, and I can't... I can't-"
Beth rushed forward and enveloped her. "No, love, no. I won't. Ali, I..." She felt Alison ball her fists around the material of her jacket. Tears pricked at her eyes and her chest stuttered as she tried to take a deep breath. "I love you."
When Beth got home, she went immediately to her medicine cabinet. She intended to empty it, to rid her house of the pills. To rid her life of the numbness. To rid herself of the will to make it all go away.
She arrived in the bathroom and stared at the orange bottles for a heavy, drawn-out moment. After a sigh riddled with defeat and shame, she swallowed two of the pills and fell asleep against the sink.
When it started, they didn't think it was going anywhere.
A little down the line, they formed a bond that tied them together as they tumbled down a slope too steep to climb back up.
When the two of them hit the bottom, only one found her way back onto her feet.