Time Does Not Heal All Wounds...Or Extinguish Old Flames

Prologue

Hanna

"Hanna." His voice, the tone in which he speaks, is a low rumble, possessing an easy discursiveness. That first syllable of her name is said with an air of surprise, happiness: what resembles hope. The last one is concupiscent, gruff, catching her slightly off guard.

"Caleb." It's different for her, saying his name. It comes out in one breath, and what she feels upon seeing him, upon saying it, is something akin to shock infused with an immediate weariness. It has been a long time since she's seen him, or spoke of him for that matter; the small movement her mouth makes as she again utters his name -unbelieving that he is really there - is a contortion of unfamiliarity, a dance to which she has forgotten all the steps.
"Caleb."

He sighs, and when he does so expelling from his lips is a heavy breath, inadvertently becoming crystallized in the blistering winter's air. "Hanna," he speaks again, as if she hadn't heard the first time; elongating her name into a multisyllabic slur.

A transformative silence supersedes all that has been said, whisking it all away with a sudden whoosh of the chilly air; the snowflakes picking up speed, rushing together and slamming against the identical chap of their lips.

Aria

"Aria!" It was the causality that prompted her to turn her head, and it was only when she spied the source of the disembodied voice as it reverberated through the New York City crowds, she allowed a smile. A wide grin stretched across her face, as she stopped abruptly at the lip of the sidewalk. There was confusion and annoyance amongst the commonality; people shoving and pushing, necessitating epithets spewing in her general direction as they tried to get past. She didn't apologize, barely registering their ire in her euphoric state.
He was here.

"Ezra," she whispered, biting her bottom lip in anticipation. The red of her lipstick was smeared where her front teeth had lain but she paid no mind, for he was now standing directly in front of her. Without any other form of acknowledgement, he took her in his arms. "Ezra." Her sibilant whisper was lost in the breeze, taken up into the wispy curlicues of the barren, frost bitten trees.

Spencer

"Spencer..." He was rather uncertain as he appraised the woman that sat in front of him: thick hair pinned into a sleek topknot, aiding the accentuation of her sharp, pointed features. The phone clamped to her ear as she put a prim, pale finger in the air, gated his curiosity into the space between them, maintaining a visible presence as he waited.

In his itchy orange jump suit, he gazed at her with such intrinsic longing, and when she finally hung up her cell and met his eyes, she blushed; finding such startling normalcy in his unabashed revering.

"I'm going to help you," was her answer, as if it can make clean all his wrongdoings and rid him of this perpetual guilt. She spoke through the transparency of the glass, her voice echoing the lost gumption of lawyers past - the ones who never fulfilled their promises of his salvation. She was different though, he knew, and this time, the certainty, the aplomb her tone possessed, was going to be enough. It was, unlike the others beforehand, the lilting key to set him free.

He pressed his hand tenderly to the barricade separating them, and she, as a nonlinguistic signification of their love, did the same.
"I promise Tobes..."

Emily

"Maya." It was as if the innate companionship between inhalation and exhalation had been brutally severed. Her
breath caught; the oxygen deviating from the mundane cycle as it hung in the air- not yet retained, and her face immediately obtained a ghostly hue. The beating of her heart became languid, just about stopping altogether.

"Emily, breathe."

She sputtered and coughed, finally taking the breath that was long overdue, and keeled over with sudden duress.

"I-I-I-" she attempted to speak, although to no avail as she struggled in her weakened state.

"Sh.. I'll explain in due time, my sweet, no rush."

Emily took a disliking to her, apparently resurrected, girlfriend's tone. She talked down to her, as if Emily were a baby: incapable of understanding such emotional trauma. In truth, she was, but there was no needing to let Maya know.

"How...?"

She let her inquisition falter, having no energy to formulate the rest of her wonderings.

Maya smiled with a boisterous glee, taken by her adorable confusion. "It's a long story, which I will tell as soon as I'm able."

With that said, she reached into the left pocket of her hoody and produced a joint, deftly placing it upon her lips and taking a heavy drag, a destructive habit that she'd, evidently, not let go.

"You still do that?"

Maya paused mid-drag, and nodded, letting the toxins fade into the air within a lengthy breath.

"You told me you'd quit before you... Before you..." She couldn't get the words out.

Again, Maya nodded, the smoke making a distorted shadow that placated itself along her grave expression: her surly frown, sunken cheeks, and steely eyes-features that exploited her drug use.

"Sometimes, Em, people lie for the good of their loved ones. Of all people you should understand."

Her tone was surprisingly light, opposite of what it had been upon her entrance moments before.

"Yeah, well, it's been awhile. You don't really know me anymore."

"You don't know me anymore." Her emulation of Emily was spot-on as her mouth emitted a throaty cackle. "Right."

Author's Note : Don't worry, there's more to come. :) Rand R (Read and Review)