"Kissing knuckles"
Chapter 6
A/N: I know it's been a little while but I finally managed to make some progress on this story. I hope you enjoy this new chapter (even with the complete lack of dialogue). Please review! Stay safe!
Cora was a little disorientated when the first tones of her alarm sounded early in the morning. She liked to be woken up by the first rays of the sun but no light peaked through the curtains and her own sense of sleepiness covered the atmosphere in the dark bedroom in a hazy doze that made everything appear half-dream and half-reality. Every time she awoke really early in the morning, she felt like being ripped from the land of dreams in the wrong moment. Her sleepy mind was always afraid for a moment to be stuck in a dimension in-between irrevocably. It just didn't seem right to start the day when the world itself was still recovering from the hectic of the day passed.
With a slightly numb arm, Cora tried to mute the alarm while rubbing her face with her other hand. She groaned quietly before she opened her eyes to catch a glimpse of the time. It was then that she recognized the clock on the bedside table was not her own one. It took her a second to recall that she was at Robert's and now she also got why she was getting up so early. This time she was the one heading to work first. She asked to do so herself but it wasn't as easy as she had thought.
She fought the urge to just roll over and get another thirty minutes of sleep. As she sat on the edge of the bed, she looked over her shoulder and tried to make out Robert's form underneath the blankets. He still slept soundly. The tone of her alarm didn't seem to have bothered him and she couldn't say this about his. She always woke at the sound and buzzing of his alarm only to be soothed back to sleep by Robert's warm lips on her cheek or her temple. For a moment she considered to give him a kiss goodbye as well but she refrained from doing so. Maybe because she wanted him to savour the moments in the land of dreams, maybe because she was afraid to succumb to his warmth or maybe it was because it didn't feel right in the reality in-between she was still in. Without pondering any further, she stood up and grabbed her clothes on the way out.
When she took the last sip of her coffee at his kitchen counter a little later and morning finally dawned, the pieces of her world put themselves together again slowly. The belief that all this hassle was worth it returned and with a soft smile, her eyes swept over one of Robert's jumpers hanging over the backrest of a chair. The feeling of warmth and comfort simple things like looking at Robert's things gave her convinced her that everything was right the way they did it. Even if their way was complicating matters and it posed quite a challenge to manage multiple threads simultaneously, the moment, she was alone with Robert every knot untangled itself and Cora just felt light.
And with this lightness, she bestirred herself and got up to grab her purse and leave for work. The rush of cold wind took hold of her slender form in the grey coat as soon as she stepped outside. She hurried to the metro station with her arms wrapped around herself. Cora was grateful for the absence of any rainfall and a jolly melody trickled through her veins and filled her as if she was actually enveloped by a gentle summer breeze and not jostled by the biting wind. When she reached the platform, the melody had leaked from her veins to her vocal cords and without even really realising it Cora hummed quietly while pacing the pavement.
The early hour evoked daydreams in her that usually weren't so present and clear. But now they unfolded and bloomed, and she entered the incoming train engrossed in her thoughts. Sitting down on a seat at the window Cora settled into her imaginings.
They were about Robert as they already were for at least the last year. She remembered dreaming about him back in college, years ago. But it hadn't been as constant as her silent gushing since she had started working with him. He filled her thoughts and dreams, he filled her days and nights. It had lifted her heart to nourish her crush, this one-sided romance, but since she had her tender affection reciprocated her heart was dancing with a new ease and without rest.
Her dreams slowly altered from being solely directed at the picture of sweet Robert that made her swooning to including wild dreams about the two of them. Sometimes she caught herself dreaming about marrying him and being his happy bride. Gosh, that would be lovely! But she instantly told herself that they weren't even a couple officially so thinking about the extreme of commitment was crackers. Still, in the back of her head hovered the image of herself in a white gown being carried over the doorstep of their house by her dear Robert. It made her think about the possibilities of how he could have proposed to her. And because it was so far from reality, she allowed herself these thoughts every once in a while. They subsided after a few minutes or at last when she faced Robert again and his attraction and softness was everything she could perceive.
This morning Cora was especially dreamy and she was unaware of how far her daydreams had progressed already. After picturing the two of them off at some beach enjoying their holidays together, her thoughts had somehow wandered into territories much more domestic. She dreamed of them pushing a baby carriage through a wide garden or park. It was a baby carriage for twins and for the life of it, Cora couldn't tell why she imagined Robert and herself with twins. But the image was so clear and Robert was looking at her so softly. One baby started crying and he hurried to round the pushchair and pick up the little bundle. When it calmed in his father's arms, Robert's face took a proud expression and Cora's heart soared. She went to his side and looked down into the chubby face of the little one. Robert voiced her thoughts, "It is so beautiful." Cora nodded and couldn't help the smile on her lips. She felt his arm around her waist and moulded to his side and all of it fitted just so perfectly.
The stream of people that entered the train at the next station ripped her from her dreamy state and the face of her baby vanished from her inner eye. A little bit alienated Cora watched the tired faces around her. She couldn't say what stated a greater contrast to her soft dreams, the grey and lightly wrinkled suit of the man across from her or the vibrant and flashy coloured jacket of the young girl standing at the door.
Directing her gaze at her clasped hands in her lap, Cora revisited the feeling the daydream had given her. It was a feeling of comfort and belonging that appeared so real framed by the penumbra and the scent of apple blossom of the garden her dreaming mind had envisioned. But there was another facete to this feeling, an urge to care and to give. As much as she had enjoyed to see Robert holding their baby there had been a great pull inside of her to hold the baby herself. To soothe it, to cuddle it, to make Robert proud by being a great mother to their children.
She blinked multiple times when she realised her train of thoughts. Unattended, her mind seemed to go much too far. It was nonsense that she daydreamed about a longing to give Robert a child. In a more woken state, she wouldn't take these daydreams so literal. She really should get a grip quickly. It was good thing she could start working soon and return the sobriety of reality.
The fact that her soul was devoted to Robert and that she longed to be close to him constantly shouldn't bring her to take every soppy daydream at face value. Cora shook her head at the nonsense her mind had fantasised.
The usual bustle on the square, which she had to cross to get from the metro station to the institute, worked to 'earth' her properly. She cleaved a way through the bulk of people and after getting jostled by a very rushed person, Cora saw clearly that the nature of her dream was just that, dreamy. It hadn't much to do with what actually was between her and Robert. Neither being his bride nor being mother to his children was fitting the vision she had of their thing. With being clear about that, she was able to start working with a peaceful mind.