Between The Lines

After the Kiss Part I: Charlotte

Charlotte stammers a reply to the carriage driver, as she slips into the dark solitude a late-night carriage ride affords. She stares almost surprised to find her body seated properly on the stanch velvet cushion. When only moments ago she found herself wrapped in a wholly different position. Seated alone, she is acutely aware of the absence of a certain warm presence encased beside her. She wakens more abruptly as the carriage door shuts and she looks past her flushed reflection in the glass. She rests her eyes on the same wide-eyed, flushed face staring back at her in the shape of Mr. Alexander Colbourne. She watches this heart, the one she can feel beating alongside hers even still, slowly fade into the salty night air. Charlotte breaths out noticeably as she feels a familiar tug of longing.

As his face and heart echo in her mind, she barely hears herself whisper aloud, astonished, "What has just happened?"

She gently sits back and presses her spinning head against the chilly seat. It warms increasingly with her presence, as she tries to take hold of tonight's events. Images roll in her scattered mind. Distant, are the pictures of the ball, Lennox's affront, standing in the foyer of the familiar Heyrick Park, waiting. Close, are the glimpses of Mr. Colbourne throughout the night. His piercing gaze across the room causing a flutter she would not soon forget. His parted lips as he held his breath before breaking their long silence. The side-glance of their hands pressed together as his eyes held hers, entranced. Even closer were images of his tender eyes longing to speak but afraid to utter a word, while his fingers nervously turned his familiar ring. But it was the last, full-color image burned in her mind that she savored quietly as her lids slowly shut. His eyes, hands, and… lips asking her questions in the silence that night.

In their intimate stillness, his actions directed poignant questions straight to her heart, "Do you love me, Charlotte?... Will you let me love you?"

Charlotte was surprised at how spelling out those unspoken words would affect her and how quickly her heart answered back.

But she quipped honestly, "Do I...? Will I...?"

She gripped the soft upholstery as flashes of him invaded these inquiries, reeling her back in time from this moment. She could still feel his hand covering hers as she entered the carriage that night. The reassurance his attentive thumb stroke gave her before he released her to the night. She smiled recalling his final sigh, heavy with meaning. The feel of his, "goodnight" still lingered in her ear, just before he turned his boyish smile away. She could still see his flushed face peeking down at her as they exited the hallway, electrified after each brush of their hands. She heard again his endearing stammer, as he tried to explain their tangled proximity to Mrs. Wheatley when she called about the carriage. She replayed the instant Mr. Colbourne revealed himself most plainly. His eyes and heart were raw and honest searching for what she longed to give. Charlotte recounted how he enveloped the acceptance she offered freely at that moment. Once more her gaze found a home, as she looked at him with respect, compassion, deep empathy, passion, and… love?

Charlotte again pushed the questions aside but bursts of them together continue to pervade her mind's eye like a torrent unearthing her buried heart. Deep fears that had been kept underground came rushing to the surface as she recalled these moments of vulnerability. She opened her eyes quickly and sat up straight trying to ground herself. As she stared out through the hazy glass she peered out at the gathering storm. But all she saw was the man whose soul had surprisingly pierced her armor. She shook her head to avoid these emerging images and feelings. But as she closed her eyes, all she could see was…

"His eyes," drawing her to him as she reclined reflexively.

Right then moments in time came and went like the moonlight dancing behind the clouds. She started to catalog how his eye spoke to her when his words could not… His witty humor danced about them, his tenderness veiled deep below them, his questions and self-doubt acknowledged by those who knew them well, his brokenness that Charlotte mirrored back surfaced beneath them, his teachable heart gleamed all around them, the pride he swallowed often tucked behind them, his heart coming awake now shone brightly through them. In recent days more peace had settled in them unveiling this longing she couldn't help but reflect on. His deep brown eyes were the gateway to the world that lived beyond his stiff exterior. It's where she saw him… all of him and she loved what she saw.

"Love?..." Charlotte murmured to herself. "Can it be that?" she argued with herself.

Suddenly rain began to fall in earnest, she blinked and caught the clouds breaking loose as the carriage began to feel the weight of the downpour. At the same moment, she felt her protective barrier lowering as she sighed and breathed out all the feelings that came boiling up unannounced. She once again saw his expressive eyes looking back at her. But more, she felt something again stirring deep in her soul when his looks, words, and touch came together this very night…

Every sense became flooded with…him. Charlotte breathed in deeply and held her breath as she felt herself once more give Mr. Colbourne…Alexander…a solid, "yes" to his silent questions with her silent but ardent answer. She was saturated by the enveloping nature of their first touch of this kind, again. She relived their kisses… warm, soft, with driving passion bonding them physically yet an instant meeting of so much more. She felt again her heart jump when he said her given name with such peace and passion. Her heart began to steadily quicken as she remembered their fervent embrace and the continuous need for breath as they both held back all they wanted. For the first time, she was connecting all they were saying in those moments. The passage of these silent actions held more latent communication than volumes of books could ever express. How safe, how loved, how vulnerable she felt…

Awaking herself from a dream-like state she sat up suddenly, Charlotte opened her eyes as warm unexpected tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped on her hands. She looked down at them. She was gripped with the awareness that these hands that held Alexander's tonight, have held another's… The haunting feeling of another time and space overwhelmed her. Flashes of Sidney crept into her memory intensifying the fear lingering in the dark with her. She saw their hands dancing, his touch, his eyes and lips holding her as he declared some silent questions too and she recalled her same response, "yes…." But that, "yes" would never lead to the promised love and marriage. That open and unabashed heart would be decimated in an instant. Without conscious thought, Charlotte's pain and the subsequent fear that grew from losing her first love so tragically, started to push her precious heart underground again. At this moment, these fears were creating distance between her and her, "dear future, indeed."

Her body felt stiff as the unearthed fears repeated over and over again as scrambled fragments in her head, "How can I love again if it hurts so bad to lose it?... Will I love, only to be devastated again?... Is love really worth fighting for?... How can I trust what I feel?... What if hiding is the only way to be safe?... Is safe even a possible goal?..." She went numb, as the questions stacked in her mind. Charlotte hunched, clinging to the velvet under her, begging for the unanswered rabble to stop. The fear of inevitable pain threatened to overwhelm her as the rain wrapped the carriage in a low rumble.

But in this frantic blur, she asked one question that stopped them all, "Can I ever be myself if I stop trying?" That last question held fast and rang loud until her mind and heart came up with an answer. She released the cushion slightly as she sat up. A resolute thought surfaced as true, culminating all she had lost, all she had feared, all she had learned, and all the broken dreams that may still be found…She dried her eyes gently with the back of her hand as she lingered there.

"I can not live hollow." She said resolutely to the thoughts inside her head. As she peered out at the clearing moonlit night she continued combating the fear, "I cannot be my best and true self without being open to loving again with my whole heart. I must be willing to risk… Without the willingness to lose, I can never love. And if I cannot love, who am I? What am I? Would I make myself a ghost? Would I make myself a shell of a person? I might be unable to feel the pain maybe, but I'd be unable to feel the beauty of the world too. To never feel a kiss, a look, and a touch like I did tonight? To never feel alive like I did tonight? I would not wish that prison on anyone. To lose myself by locking my heart away is too great a loss, indeed… no matter the risk." That last part came slowly as she pondered the ramifications of such revelations.

Charlotte sat as her mind cleared, feeling for the first time the steady, calming rhythm of the carriage under her as the rain subsided. She settled in her seat with new determined courage. She was almost back but she knew something new had just transpired and it was pushing her forward. Some fear remained but the courage to live again was calling her out of hiding. She felt something she had not really let in for a long time… hope. Her heart beat faster as she thought of walking up to Heyrick Park tomorrow morning. She was genuinely excited. Excited to see him, excited to tell him, excited to show him… to give him confirmation that she wanted to live whole and wholly love…

This man had made an undeniable offer for her heart to live again. He had been asking through subtle actions for weeks now but tonight those actions proved clear.

Charlotte brought up his face, flushed with honesty, and mouthed to the man in the glass, "Yes, Alexander Colbourne... I do love you and Yes, I will let you love me."

As this truth slipped through her lips, she whispered more revelations to the illuminated night sky. As she drank in the solitary light reflected on the water she took a deep cleansing breath. The peaceful calm quieted her heart and mind. It hung over her, for she knew she had found someone worth risking her heart for. " Until Tomorrow then, Mr. Colbourne…" She blushed, beaming.