just like a ghost you better haunt in my dreams
Eternity is such a long, long time to wait.
She waits for him on the back steps. She waits for him in what used to be his office. She waits for him down in the basement, listening to Travis play with those horribly burned little girls.
She waits for him, and she thinks about the beginning: hot whispered moments, still, sleepless nights. She thinks about the end: anger and screaming, suffering.
She watches him, remaining unknown and unseen, ashamed.
He still drinks coffee, in the mornings, when he's got it, and sometimes she'll catch him looking out at the gazebo. For one hot instant, she's wondering if he's thinking of her. Then he rubs a hand across the back of his neck, across the angry bruise that still appears there sometimes, and her heart falls to her feet.
She wants to go to him but instead, she remains unknown, just a cold breeze that lifts the hair on the nape of his scarred neck.
He brushes past her, and she takes in a sharp breath. He twitches his head toward where she's been standing, and her heart feels as if it might vault out of her chest.
He rubs the back of his neck again, more quickly, angrier this time, seeming to irritate the scars which only appeared when he thought about them being there.
"I know you're here. You're always here," he snaps, and in a sudden rush of violence, backhands his coffee mug off the counter. Hayden starts as it shatters against the wall, but she can't bring herself to leave the room. He's never spoken to her before.
He looks over at the mess on the floor and sighs, heavily. He places his palms down on the counter, as if leaning there for support, hangs his head. His body language says that he's more tired than angry, and Hayden's heart aches for him.
She creeps closer and closer, haunting him like the ghost she is, and she can't stop herself. She can't control anything she's doing anymore, and she's afraid but exhilarated at the same time.
Moving unbearably slowly, she places one small hand over his on the counter, sticks her fingers into the grooves between his.
He lifts his head, looks down at his hand. He can feel her and she can feel him and Hayden's heart is in her throat and she's holding her breath.
She's made herself completely known to him without even thinking about it.
He looks up at her and his blue, blue eyes meet hers and she's trembling all over because she's afraid and because she's never felt so much in her whole life and she wants everything and nothing from him, because this is too much and not enough and her lungs are burning because she still can't breathe.
He's making a fist on the countertop but she doesn't allow herself to flinch away from him. If he hits her, she'll deserve it. Instead of violence he just lets out a long breath and hangs his head again.
Hayden lets out the breath she's been holding with a rush. She's looking down at him and without allowing herself to think, she drops a soft kiss on the angry, red skin of the back of his neck, her lips soft against the rough rope burn.
Hayden wants to kiss all of Ben's scars, the ones she created and the ones she didn't. She wants to kiss all the flesh between them, wants to erase the time between those scars with her mouth, her love, but she tries to be content with that one, chaste kiss.
He straightens up, suddenly, looking down at her, and she feels small and insignificant and ashamed. She wants to look away but she can't, can't escape from the endless blue of his eyes, the slight wrinkles around the edges. She hasn't been this close to him in years and she can't give it up, not even for a shamed second. She focuses on the fact that he hasn't let go of her hand, has allowed her fingers to remain slightly entwined with his.
He moves toward her, leans down, and kisses her face, right where the shovel had first shattered her right cheekbone, and then again on her forehead, her nose, where the second and third blows had hit and killed her.
Hayden surrenders to him like she always has, and his arms come around her and it's like being alive again, like coming home again.
His hands are soft and gentle on her body and when he lies her down on the floor and smiles at her she bursts into tears but she's smiling back because he's crying too, tears tracking down his beloved laugh lines, and when they make love on the kitchen floor he's slow and gentle and generous and he never takes his eyes off her face.
It's familiar but strange because she's never felt his hands so gentle, never seen him look at her that way. It had all been rough, loud, deviant sex before, in hallways, in bathrooms, and even though her naked body was cold against the kitchen tile she felt warm all over, flushed.
This time, it was her he was making love to, not some student whose body he used. It was Hayden, and for a time, for a while, until he wised up and wished her away or left her there naked on the floor, it was like he loved her.
For a time, he was loving her, and Hayden could hold on to that for the rest of eternity.