I re-read this very old story of mine last night and realised that it needed an ending. As a way to distract myself from the long story I've been writing for a while now, I decided I would write chapter two. I don't even know if anyone is still out there, reading this or any other Arastoo and Cam stories, for that matter. If you do, let me know what you think!
Him
The moon is the only light in the room when she looks over to him, his sleeping form on the other side of her bed. She can't sleep - again- and gets up because just lying there always makes her feel claustrophobic, especially since she hasn't forgotten the skeletal human puppets flying in the lab. Quietly she tiptoes out of the room, grabs her robe off the armchair in the corner and closes the door silently behind her as she leaves the room.
The cold air smells like snow when she steps outside onto her rooftop terrace, but the ground is dark and dry. With the ease of habit she digs the cigarettes out of their hiding place beneath the balustrade and lights the first one as she stares out into the night.
She can't even remember how many nights she has spent out here in the cold trying to distract herself from missing him, fighting the feeling of loneliness and keeping her desperate tears at bay.
He is back now, just in the other room asleep in her bed and yet again, here she is, hiding from her own feelings and trying to blow them out into the night with the smoke. It has never worked and it doesn't this night, but she can still try.
"It's easy to run away from things that scare you. Easier than trying to fight through the complications."
When he was gone all she had wished for was for him to change his mind and come back. She never realised how difficult it would be to actually have him back.
The night he had driven her home, he offered to stay with her so she wouldn't be alone. He had't reacted much to her revelation that Sebastian was out of the picture. They hadn't talked much on the drive home. Neither of them said much after they had entered her apartment. She wasn't sure if he kissed her or she kissed him. She knows however that they made up for the time apart that night, physically at least. Like addicts they craved more each time. They hadn't been able to stop kissing - sloppily, stop touching - greedily, stop having sex - passionately. At some point they made it from the living room to the bedroom. They fell asleep in the early hours of the morning and she left for work a bit later than usual, but without more than a kiss goodbye.
They repeated this for a week. And then they started talking and with the talking came the fighting.
They had never been a couple that fought much. They had their spats and some discussions. She could count the number of times they had yelled at each other, before he left her to chase his dream career. Now, that he is back, all they seem able to do is yell or fuck. She takes the first drag of her cigarette with that realisation.
Yet, giving into her addiction doesn't help with the heavy feeling in her gut. Her remedy for sleepless nights, has it ever helped since he left? It doesn't make her feel better, but it gives her a reason to stand out here in the middle of the night, freezing. No one could say she's crazy if she's just outside smoking, right?
"I love you. And I realise now I should never have walked away. I'm not ready to give up on you yet. You're more important to me than any job could ever be."
She loves him, that much she knows. However the fact that he walked out of her life after everything they had been through together hurts so much, and for a job? Not even for a specific job but for the vague chance of some dream job - it really hurts. Their fights circle around this fact like the eye of a storm. Round and round it goes. Why he left her back then, when he refuses the job in Berlin now. Why can't she accept that he was foolish back then, and knows what he wants now. How can she know that he won't leave again in the future for some vague opportunity. Why can't she trust him. Why can't he understand that she can't trust him when he can't explain why he left her back then and now refuses the job in Berlin...
The conversation about it usually ends with them first screaming at each other and then tearing each others clothes off. The last tender, non-sexual physical contact was them holding hands when they left her office that night before he drove her home.
"I see. Are you ready?"
The cold smoke of the cigarette that wafts around her body is nothing like the touch she craves.
"You started smoking again". Her body stiffens when she hears his voice from behind and she tries to detect any trace of anger in it. She is so tired. And she doesn't want to fight. Not now, not again and not here. She is cold enough, inside and out, she doesn't need him to add to it.
She takes a deep drag of the cigarette and then stubs it on the banister so she can flee when he will start the inevitable argument. Her hiding space suddenly isn't save anymore. She should have known, because he knows her.
She doesn't turn around, but just stares into the darkness, really feeling the cold for the first time since she came outside. It is too late to yell out here. It is too cold to have sex here.
When his arms wrap around her waist and he holds her gently she is surprised. The warmth from his body seeps through her thin rope and into her body. She moves closer to the heat, closer to him. His chin comes to rest on her shoulder, his warm cheek touching her own cold face. He turns his head and places a soft kiss on the edge of her mouth, next on her chin, her neck, her collar bone. Everywhere he can reach without letting her go. She closes her eyes.
The soft touch of his lips warmes her more than any jacket could and it also melts the ice that formed around her emotions during the last couple of months. Sex has been a way of connecting, but his tenderness shakes her to the core.
"I missed you so much," she admits and realises only by the way her voice shakes that she is crying.
"I missed you, too. I love you, Cam. I came back because I don't want to be without you. I'm so sorry I put you through this and destroyed your trust in me." His words are quietly spoken directly in her ear. "I'll do everything to gain it back. I love you so much, Cam." She is sobbing by then. Once the floodgates are open, all the emotions come bursting out. She was trying to let them go up in smoke on that terrace of hers, but it is his arms around her that actually frees her. She turns around and falls into them and the way his chest shakes let her know that he is crying as well.
He holds her that night, and she holds him and it doesn't go further than that. He explains himself in quiet words, while they lie in bed and she listens and finally forgives him. He is back, he loves her, probably even more than before. The warmth that surrounds them underneath the covers of her blankets finally makes her fall into a peaceful sleep, her head resting against his chest. She doesn't need a hiding spot. She doesn't need cigarettes or her emotions up in smoke. She just needs him, right next to her. Arastoo is back. And she loves him still.
