Wes wakes, a sudden chill running down his spine. His eyes open reluctantly, fixing on the ceiling of the little room he shares with his fiancé, Gigi. His Gigi and no one else's. In the gloom, his eyes can barely separate the different colors in the room; made to be seen and appreciated most in the light of day. The clock beside the bed ticks over the minute past one, and he sighs.
He's cold.
Reluctantly, he turns to the right. The outline of Gigi stands out, surrounded by the light against the window beyond the bed. He can see that, in her sleep, she had rolled over, taking the blankets with her. Moonlight washes over her hair, the usually curled locks flowing like glowing water down the bedspread. He can't see the other side, but he can imagine that her nose barely peeks out of the blankets; the rest of her snuggled down in the warm, soft sheets.
A slight smile crosses Wes' lips, and he shivers once more. He reaches out with a hand, experimentally tugging at the blankets, only to find them firmly in the grasp of his lover - who was now grumbling in her sleep at him. He tries once more, grabbing with both hands this time and pulling harder; yet, they barely budge from the slumbering woman. Wes gives up, a good-natured huff escaping him. The bedsprings squeak once in protest at his movement, and he glances back up to the ceiling, wandering through the recesses of his mind.
There is a fraction of the world, made up almost entirely of men, that preach, shout, and complain to any that will listen, that women are weaker than men and thus, below them. It has always been Wes' private and unshakable belief that none of them had ever once had to try to get the blankets back from a sleeping person of the female gender; it was nearly impossible, especially if they were Gigi. He smiles to himself at that thought, his eyes drifting to her. Slowly, he rolls over, still careful not to disturb her. He reaches out to touch her, before falling away, just short.
Lately, there's been a line there, you see. A large, unspeakable distance that he can actually feel getting larger sometimes. Sometimes the distance is tiny; near nonexistent, and Wes can hold her in his arms, stroke her hair, and listen to her giggle about this and that; but, so often, the distance seems to grow. So often, it gets so large and deep that even if he focuses on her words as hard as he can, he can't tell the true or false meaning of them.
The line doesn't come from nowhere, though. Sometimes - no, usually -, he causes it, and other times, she causes it. Tonight, Wes knows she blames him for the distance; he knows she's right.
In the end, though, it's not important. His hand messes with the sheets separating him from his fiancé, and he scrunches his eyes shut; drawing in on himself like a lost fawn. Curled up on their bed but still leaving that important space between, Wes lets a sigh run through the air, as if to fight the aching emptiness and the loneliness while being a mere three inches from Gigi's sleeping form.
What's important, is that the line exists and that they wish it did not exist.
There was a time they could simply lay quietly together on the hood of his car, on the highest hill in town, watching the sunset. He loved seeing the soft feathers of rosy light dance over her features and the landscape surrounding her; it was beautiful. It made him fall a little deeper in love with her each time he saw her.
Wes certainly never felt that he needed to draft his every interaction with her, editing and re-writing in his head the parts that seemed likely to make that rift grow. Conversations that took mere seconds two months ago now take minutes, sometimes hours - both of them carefully circling the other with their words, hoping against hope that they'll catch one another. He wonders, as he lays curled up beside his sleep-mumbling lover, why they lay little verbal traps. Is it to pull the other closer, across that line, or is it to ensnare, to capture, to hold the other aloft and score points in some weird game?
He called her annoying once, crazy, a nuisance.
She cried.
And he never, never once, saw that glimmer of fear in her eyes before. Wes can tell by her cautious approach to him and her pauses in speech that she is doing the same thing - composing, re-composing, and carefully evaluating each possible outcome. It's in the hitch in her voice, the way one hand is always grabbing her opposite arm, the uneasy sway of a woman truly considering simply running. That glimmer of fear has overridden the usual shine and zest for life she once had.
Wes hates himself for it.
He rolls off the bed, setting his feet down gently before carefully making his way into the hall, down to the first door on the right. The bathroom light is bright, too bright, and he fumbles for the water taps; splashing his face with cold water, he finally opens his eyes to look at the man he's become. He doesn't like what he sees; no better than 20 years ago.
He's not sure why she does.
The walk down the hall to that half-open door feels more like the trudge of a criminal, being brought back to see the fruits of his crime. He makes his way back to his room - their room -and hopes against hope that maybe Gigi's rolled over since he left.
Not so much. He slips back into bed, laying now with his back to her. Every inhale, Wes can feel the soft blankets wrapped around her rubbing gently on his back. Against his better judgement, he leans further against them, letting his eyes slip shut as he enters his memories once more.
He yelled at her once; to leave him alone, to do something productive for once, to act normal for a bit.
He curls closer against her and feels her shiver, pulling in tightly against herself.
I suppose I deserve that.
Women, for all their power and strength, have a way about them that he has yet to truly understand. Some sort of way of tapping the underlying ebb and flow of emotions and translating them to real events that transcends even the strongest fictional spells. The cock of her head and strange shimmer to her eyes when he told her everything was "fine" was enough to tell him that she knew. She would never tell him she knew - she had no hard proof, be unable to see in his head, after all - but as they stood and traded stares under their respective masks of loving calm, he knew she knew.
It wasn't true, everything was hardly fine. Trust is the most precious of commodities in a relationship, and knowing that he had lost that trust - even for just a little while - made him feel ill. She hadn't done anything wrong. All she had done was try to make him happy, to given him the company and love he lacked for so long.
And instead, Wes found reason to doubt her intentions.
The clock ticks over again to 1:15. He brings up his hands, rubbing his bleary eyes before squinting at the woman beside him. He ran his eyes over her again, debating each critical thing he had ever said towards her.
The line formed soon after, and regardless of the fact that he had no real reason to behave poorly, Wes did. Maybe it was his pride, hurt by having such a quirky specimen as a lover rather than someone who was entirely sane. Maybe that private embarrassment needed some outlet, yet, he ought to have known better than to be so cruel.
His gut churns and his face heats as compounded embarrassment and regret rears up to slap him in the face.
Do I really care that much? Does it really make that big a difference that she's different? Why did I assume that she didn't know her choices weren't the best, and why did I think it was any of my business?
She was relatively healthy in the head, and her doctor had already told them that her past trauma was not affecting her mental health all that adversely anymore. All he did was drive her to be more secretive, more gloomy. Drive her away from him in yet another way.
Wes groans softly into the silence, pinching the bridge of his nose. He remembers all of it. All the times he glared at her over a random overjoyed outburst in public, or snapped at her over the same trait of excitability that charmed him months ago. He remembers her face, most of all.
The cautious stare of a woman that isn't quite sure who has done away with her lover and replaced him with a monster.
Perhaps the line protects Gigi. Perhaps being on the other side, away from him, gives her some small measure of comfort.
Her silhouette against the window blurs, breaking into small refracted glows of light, and it takes Wes a moment to realize that he's crying.
Thank God she's not awake...
Screaming across a thousand miles is no way to live with another person. Deliberately ensuring the distance is there is no help, either. Wes feels a small surge of anger worm through his stomach and up to his chest at her.
How dare she not try to fix this? Doesn't she care?
And just like that, lying on the cold side of the bed beside his lover at twenty past one, the anger disappears. That's just the attitude that pushes her away.
Have faith in her. It's your fault, you moron.
Wes' mind works, clicking through the scoreboard, covered with marks on both sides, before he quite suddenly tosses it down into that horrid void, that distance. A sudden spike of cold dread at throwing away the one weapon he has to win against her shoots through Wes, before being replaced with a strange warmth. Radiating out from his chest, it spreads to the rest of him and eventually, he breathes out. A small, fond smile replaces his previous frown, and he turns fully to face her back.
The line might always be there, but there is nothing saying that they cannot be on the same side of it. He realizes, now, that he is going to have to build a bridge. Bridges take time to build, to make them sturdy and safe for travel, and Wes knows it will be some time before Gigi can join him permanently on his side. Yet, there is nothing saying he cannot show her his efforts to build that bridge, and he begins by draping one arm across her slumbering body. She shivers, then relaxes, her body pressing back against his chest.
Wes holds her, even through the cumbersome blankets, and strokes her hair. The smell of roses and vanilla rises from her, and he smiles. Snuggling deeper against her, he pulls her in tightly, willing his feelings of love and devotion to translate through the barrier.
Love is not a war. She is not the enemy.
She is my love. My Gigi.
And I can't believe I ever forgot that.
Hidden from his view, a "sleeping" woman smiled.
Notes:
A rewrite/edit of something I wrote a long time ago. It's kind of dumb. I don't think I'll post it to Ao3 like I usually do. Hardly a soul even reads my stuff anyway.