Disclaimer: JKR owns all.
VIVAASA
by: carpetfibers
Day 204
The playground empties earlier than usual, the cold weather forcing parents to retrieve their children before the streetlights awaken. She missed her shift, and he spent the afternoon responding in ignorance as to the reason. He hurries his steps, barely pausing near the bench he still refers to as his, and he tells himself that it is not worry that spurs his haste. He insists, as he opens the locked door and enters the flat, that he does not rush to her doorway due to concern. It is not a late night hour that allows for weakness or self reflection; the sun is still present and he can be unaffected by her.
Her door is open and she lies above the blankets, feet bare, asleep. His heart stirs and disobedient legs carry him to her side.
She sleeps with her lips pursed, as if deep in the midst of a puzzle. Her eyelids, thin and translucent to his gaze, flicker and flit, and her small hands tense in tight fists. It is intractable, this connection he feels to her. He remembers her in school; he remembers his adamant dislike of her and her friends, and everything she did and said and felt and believed. He remembers the times he wished to hurt her, to force her into silence. He remembers those early days of acquaintance and how never, not once, he felt anything except resentment and dislike. He remembers he used to hate her with that easy childish loathing that came to him so frequently before.
She sighs, and his breath catches. The distance is a short one, a mere few steps and a slight climb, and in the half hour it takes for him to cross it, he thinks only of the way she felt when she cried, the heaviness of her hair on his hands, and the brief touch she gave his forehead in the mornings. She is not beautiful, and yet she is something more, and he knows this as a truth even as he slips in beside her, drawing the warmth of her blankets over them. She shifts toward his weight and then she is there, cheek against his chest and brow cool against his lips. Sleep finds him quickly and he tells himself, as the thick darkness of dreams overtakes him, that there are some choices that involve no decision at all.
He reminds himself of this the next morning, when he awakens to an empty bed and breakfast on a tray beside him. He reminds himself of this later that night, when he returns home in the darkness after hours spent wasting seconds in a pub with a half filled glass. He reminds himself of this then, as he avoids returning to what he believes will be a conversation. He is not ready for words or confrontation; he has been a coward for too much of his life to change so suddenly. He reminds himself of this as he returns to the flat, void of lamp light.
His pillow on the couch is missing and her door is open. She is asleep and within minutes, so is he. When he wakes next, she is still there, and he reminds himself that there are some decisions in which a choice is unnecessary.
End Day 205