Okay, so it's not a one shot.
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I'd started driving and I didn't know why. Well, rather I knew why, but I couldn't explain what made me do it. One minute I'd been sitting on my couch, the next I was in my car, numbly aware of my actions. I didn't know where I was going, but I was going, all the same. After a timeless interval, I stopped the car at the side of a back road. If I'd been here before I didn't recognize it. Silence reigned for a time before I stepped from the car, the door ajar. I would not shatter this night.
Though it might shatter me.
I now knew why I was here. The sky was clear of clouds, and I was staring at the vast moonless expanse of a perfect blanket of star. Hundreds, thousands, all in impeccable clarity. My senses seemed heightened, stretched. I could feel the slightest breeze, the faintest brush of grass on skin, the coarseness of my clothing. My shoes had been abandoned in the car so that I might walk this path, alone, directly with the earth.
Except that I wasn't alone.
Some small part of me had known he'd be there, know that, whether I liked it or not, my paths would no longer be trodden in solitude. That for the rest of our lives – and beyond – we'd be one of the few fortunates lucky enough to have found our perfect opposites, our only complements, our ones in five billion. A relationship which was reciprocated perfectly, without flaw, a diamond with a thousand faultless facets. How something so complex can seem to simple is enough to boggle the mind. I just wish…just wish I had the courage to jeopardize everything we have to go to the next level, the final level.
The stars beckoned my spirit, offered me the chance to shed my earthly existence and exchange it for a heavenly one, to float among the stars and know all the secrets of the universe and to truly, undeniably, and completely be at peace. I let myself be lifted, opened my soul, just enough to taste it. It was beautiful, a masterpiece of perfect symmetry, nature's magnum opus, one which offered the chance to comprehend what my mundane mind could not.
But it was empty.
I pulled back, any reluctance burned away by the void in my heart that space had produced. It was a place of life, of birth and death, but not one of love, or hate. Emotions were not a factor. And, as a result of that, I knew I could not accept the offer. Not only because of my heart, but because of his.
Floating dreamily above the silver meadow, I approached him, hoping, praying, that he, too, would deny the offer. Yet I didn't reach out to him, didn't try to sway him in his decision. He had to choose his own path.
He stood as I had moments – or hours? – before. Brilliant pools of green turned skyward, reflecting stars in their depths. I don't know how I knew, but I knew he was being offered Samantha. A chance to not only see her, but be with her. Forever? With feelings or with the same impassionate embrace of the universe? I could only guess.
It seemed an eon – and might well have been – before either of us moved.
And it was he who broke the spell.
As if jolted from a trance, those same pools lowered, visibly exhausted. They noted with unveiled surprise my presence, the only living soul in this starlit field.
"You didn't take it."
As if that wasn't obvious enough.
He shook his head slowly, clearing his mind and answering my rhetorical statement with the one simple gesture. Even in the night, I could see the pain in his eyes.
"Why?" I surprised myself at the neutrality of the statement, the detachment of the voice. It was as if part of space had taken residence inside of me, instilling a cool, objective numbness.
"You weren't there."
The words were soft, providing a medium for things left unsaid, thousands of words in innumerable languages which even then could not begin to describe the intensity of the emotion.
He knew, however, that I needed more than unspoken words. He also knew that, by giving them to me, there was no turning back, no second chances. My heart had frosted over, ice pumping sluggishly through my veins. What if he didn't?
What if he did?
The grass crunched beneath his feet, reminding both of us with a surge of bitterness of the bondage in which we were chained and had chosen to willfully remain in.
Before I could comprehend everything that was going on, he was there, he was here, his hands soft on my face, eyes locked on mine, the words there, stronger than ever, waiting for a bridge.
The bridge was built with a kiss, not one of lust and passion but one of love. Doors I hadn't even known existed were opened, completely, ones I'd been trying to shut for years finally closed.
I didn't pull away and neither did he, but I soon felt lips and then a head on resting on my hair. He kept his arms circled around my waist, both of us needing the physical contact.
On a breeze, whispered words for my ears only drifted.
"I love you."
