A short that's been bubbling around lately. I know a lot of it won't make sense, because it's always referring to a backstory that is impossible to form from just this information. But I'd like to see what your minds come up with. Anyway, this is kind of an apology, too, for being away for so long. Hopefully it will hold some of you back a little longer…..Hope you guys like it!

Love always,

Cev

Monday. Clicking of keyboards was the most common noise my ears familiarized with. The fumes of coffee, stains on papers procured from taking short, messy meals on my desktop while flipping through class notes, class schedules, and class print-outs. When would I start preparing for my thesis?

"You want something to eat?"

I look behind my shoulder, pausing from reading. His wine eyes are deep, apologetic, and beyond them is something I don't understand. Is it possible to love someone you don't understand? Isn't the opposite of that statement the only truth?

I just look at him.

Thoughts of the play and production when through my mind. I still had to finish sewing some costumes for the actors. The actors? This actor..I had made his costume…

"I'm still a virgin."

Ripples of the past semester floated constantly out into my memory. They were jarred by small things – when my bed sheets fell over my body a certain way at night, being at a party with all our friends, only he wasn't there. That ruined most things. Often, I had thought that I should simply abandon them. It didn't matter where they were; their faces reminded me of him. Even if I only took a certain way home at night that we had passed together, he filled the space.

He walked behind me, taking my long scarf between his hands and connecting us by it – pulling it around his neck. His long, brown fingers were warm on the November night, his black hair soft against my shoulder, stubble rough against my cheek. My lips were pink and sore.

Spring had made the greenery of the university surreal; Saturday was surreal in all regards – the bright green, black boughs, cheery light, pink granite buildings. And then he walked into the theatre before rehearsal.

What? No. This can't be happening. No way. What was he doing here? Wasn't he in Europe?

I was awkward. I didn't know how to deal. My lines disappeared from my memory. Wasn't he supposed to contact someone before he showed up? Wasn't he avoiding me?

Not many words. He never really had too much to say, it was his nature. He wasn't great with people off stage. Out of stage lights, he was a beautiful person no one quite knew how to deal with.

The morning, when rehearsal ended, he left – a few meager words, not much interaction. My director's comforting words after? I can't remember them now.

"Hitomi-"

I was standing in front of the theatre before the house opened. My nerves had settled since his abrupt reentrance into my life that morning.

Figures.

I had just gotten used to every day with him not there; as fast as it seemed, when wine was not clouding my brain, making my skin remember his loss, I was getting better. I was used to it so much it was like he never even existed in the first place. Like I had never met him, like I was unchanged. Like I had never loved him.

I would have never admitted this to him. His pride makes me stubborn – I didn't want to give him any power over my emotions. But I really did love him. I couldn't say it because of my pride. Was it my fault?

"I can't be in this kind of relationship!"

Awkward Goodbye.

Awkward hello.

And then he arrived – white shirt, denim, hair askew as if he just woke up. What was he doing here?! Wasn't this morning enough?! Why are you entering my life again? I thought I could control how people enter and leave my life.

He didn't say much – didn't even meet my eyes. I thought, 'He's just here for our other friends in the play…he's just here for Allen, for Gaddess…not me. Not me. This isn't about me…How DARE he come here!'

Did he know I would be there? Did he know?

Did he even know what he had done wrong in the first place?

I thought I was okay – but when the lights flashed and I had to go backstage my cheeks were burning in embarrassment. I wanted to go out there and prove to him that I was fine, doing wonderfully, becoming a great actress, and a wonderful artist. A wonderful person – all without him being here. But instead my face was so red, and I had to sit down. I must have fixed my hair at least 4 times before my entrance – and I probably looked the same every time I came out of the dressing room. The thought that at one time he had sat in the same place I did while fixing my dress made my stomach sink through my heels.

Too many memories – and all of him under my mind's spotlight!

The stage made me a different person. I delivered my character, did my part. But when the stage door closed behind me, life came back full circle. Would he even see me? Would he even talk to me? I had faked nonchalance to my friends – it wasn't hard. Perhaps even he saw that I didn't care. My pride was stripping down. No! Where was my mind going? My breath was coming quicker – my body was flushed. My image was falling, and I knew I didn't have any time to pull the pieces back together before…

Curtain call.

I couldn't even look at the audience. With all the lights on, if I looked up at all, I know my eyes would have fallen on his dark, raven head. I knew exactly where he was in the audience all throughout intermission.

Clapping. Thank-you's. You did wonderful. Congratulations!

I was giving my all to act. Act. Act! ACT!

But real life is different. I'm not good at lying. I'm not good at saying I'm okay. I'm only a person who occasionally takes up a complicated character role in a different world. I was not in Character World. I was in Hitomi World.

I pushed through the crowd-

"No, I'm just going to get some water…Oh, thanks! Yeah, I'll be at the cast party later – I'm going to go to the dressing room now…..Excuse me, yes, thanks, I just need to get out here….Is anyone here?"

A sigh.

It had been dark outside, and I remembered last semester, before he left, I had nearly cried on this spot, this exact spot, during intermission during our final play together. I had pulled myself together, and just when I was prepared to go back inside, he had come outside.

Thinking about it now, had he been looking for me?

Van.

It had been too much. My chest was heaving – I had to sit down. I felt my forehead, my cheeks, my neck. I was burning up. I couldn't escape memory. Either it was haunting me or prideful me was denying that I still held on, I still loved, still missed, still wasn't over it, despite how much I said I was fine, despite how much I derailed him in front of my friends.

I was awful. An awful person. How could I ever face anyone again? What would I say, after all this pretending?

It had been since December, but at that moment my eyes were burning and the flood came. Sniffling, ugly me was sitting on concrete under the bad light of an empty enclosure on an empty campus. The people inside were another world, another life, another me.

Van.

"You okay?"

Two warm, rough hands were clasping my shoulders.

I could have puked. My breaths came in short – and I was choking on tears and hiccups and heartbeats. No words came out. I turned. I couldn't stand. I looked up at him.

He was standing over me, washed out in the dim night – his eyes cast darkly beyond his long black hair. But his voice was soft. It was directed at me.

"What?" He couldn't have been here. Why was he here? This wasn't real. This was the dream I had every night when he left - no phone call, just word-of-mouth knowledge that he had left the country. This was what I hoped for – the miracle – the phone call - 'I love you' – the unpredicted appearance backstage – a kiss, a declaration. An apology.

None of that happened, but he did grasp my arms, and pull me up. I felt like a small child. Something familiar – the back of my neck padded by eight fingers; two warm thumbs clasping my cheeks, pushing away strands of hair.

"Hitomi."

How was I supposed to react to this tenderness? Where did it come from?

"Don't Cry."

There was a soft warmth on my forehead, short, sweet. And suddenly he was all around me, nose deep into my neck – something cold and wet on my collarbone.

"I'm sorry."

I cried harder from hearing it. My body buckled - for so long I wanted him to say it. For so long I thought of how I'd send him out again after accepting it, and end things there. But for reasons still unknown to me now, I didn't think it was appropriate, him saying those words. For some reason, I regretted him saying it.

But I needed it.

He is holding my hands this Monday Morning. The show is forgotten. My lines? The party? We did not go. He is smiling softly. I think he is already forgiving the situation. Maybe he is starting to forgive himself. What happened in Europe? What did he think? What troubled him so? But perhaps now his heart is calm; perhaps he knows what I found out last night:

That I forgave him before he returned.

How do I tell Millerna? How do I tell my mother? How do I make others who have heard my sob selfish stories that I'm just at fault?

For now, I don't want to think of it.

He's wearing a light red shirt – it shows off his eyes, and his beautiful hair. I touch his cheek. He is always beautiful to me. I still don't understand everything behind his eyes – beyond his minimal words. But I accepted it a long time ago.

"Yes – let's get some breakfast."

Fin