The morning is bright. The sun is out for the first time in a few weeks and the clouds are sparse. The air is still chilly, but you notice it only because Carly shivers in her hoodie. She has your hand in hers and you wish that you had a way of trading your lack of feeling for the cold air with her sensitivity.
Your mind drifts for a moment to a time when the cold air of the late fall would chill your skin. When the season moved from Harvest and into Winterfest and thicker clothing was brought out. The furs and the heavy cloaks. The air was fresh and clean and breathing it deep into your lungs had made you feel alive.
You return to the present and realize that Carly is talking to you, but that you have missed most of it. Fortunately, you can usually bluff your way though times like this by appearing to be totally detached and simply grunt a response.
"A grunt is not answering the question, Sam," Carly chastises you, squeezing your hand slightly, her eyes looking at yours with a curved eyebrow.
You continue to walk beside her along the sidewalk, in the morning air, exchanging a look with her as you desperately try to think about what she had been saying to you.
"You have absolutely no idea what I was saying, do you?" Carly accuses with a slight chuckle.
Erp! Caught. Damn... she is good. "I'm so focused on your voice that I got lost in your words, cupcake." Damn. You are good.
"How many times have you used that line," Carly asks.
"Once or twice," you answer, though really this is the only time you ever used it and hope that it gets you off the hook.
"And how many times has it worked for you?"
"Including this time?"
Carly rolls her eyes at you and gives her head a little shake. "This time didn't work for you, babe."
You give her the Puckett Pout.
"Yeah, that isn't going to work either. Now, you want to answer my question or do I need to repeat it?"
You sigh. How can she be immune to the Puckett Pout? That always works. Well, usually it does. Sometimes. On the odd occasion. You lower your head a bit, defeated. "Yeah, sorry. Wasn't listening."
Carly gives you a side bump and you love the momentary contact with her body and wonder again why it is that you can feel things with her that you only felt a few dozen times in your past. Nothing else makes you feel like she does. Looking at her sizzles your insides like bacon on the grill. Her touch is like electricity unleashed through your skin. Her voice reaches you through any distraction and forces you to take notice of her. Yes, that's what it is. You notice her.
Around you the people of the world move like gray, faceless momentary blobs. Their time in this world is brief and their existence is uninteresting. You pass them completely detached as if they were as meaningless as ants. You are so much stronger than any of them. You perceive so much more of this world, this existence than any of them. They are temporary. They are ephemeral. You are eternal. They are beneath your notice.
But, not Carly. Not her. No. You notice Carly. She makes you weak. She makes you human. She makes you mortal. She is like sweet poison to you.
And, something else. She feels familiar. When you look at Carly, you feel home. Something that you have only felt a handful of times in the past. And each of those times had ended badly. Oh, so badly. Your heart had been shattered and it had taken decades to recover, wandering the world aimlessly until drawn to some other point in time where your heart found home again for all to brief a time. Only to be lost again. Would it be any different now?
You should leave. You know this. Leave before Carly shared the fate of so many before her. But, she is your weakness and you do not have the strength to leave.
Carly has stopped walking and her sudden halt draws you from your thoughts to find her dark brown eyes staring down at you with a shine to them and a grin on her lips and you realize that once again, you have not been paying attention to her question.
"Oops," you grin at her and look up into her dark chocolate orbs and know that you are completely lost to her and no matter how many times you jump off of a building, it will never save you from the love you have for her. And, in the end, that will be your undoing.