Drifts
XxX
"In the Fall of 2009, I was assigned to chronicle the unmerciful and obsessive mission of Marcus Fiorelli, whose personal net worth did nothing to fend off the authorities from allowing him to complete a quixotic climb up fifteen summits that cluster the mountain ranges of Central Colorado. His efforts were frustrated on many fronts – a weakened crew, inclement weather, delays in schedule and unsympathetic authorities blocking access to trailheads.
Within a month's time, we would learn the mistakes of taxing the body while ascending above tree line, where little oxygen exists for animal or vegetation, testing our physical and psychological mettle. I have researched and interviewed the crew of nine from the failed expedition and, if my facts are found faulty by my editor's tireless fact checkers, it is because no one person's story could be corroborated, including my own. Altitude sickness claimed most of us, and though it bears with it a multitude of physical symptoms, the most acute and devastating manifestation is in the mind's corners. Excessive exposure to the airless void warped our basic ability to capture and process details for lengths of time, altering memories and rendering us useless.
I spent months, off and on with the crew, ascending treacherous terrain leading us to unforgivable summits and twisting our grip on sanity with each lunging footfall. This is that story." - Excerpt from "No Mountains Moving" by Edward Cullen, National Trekker Magazine.
XxX
Check in through security. Take off your shoes. On-time at the gate. Coffee with creamer, please. No pillow, thank you. De-plane. Check for messages. You have one.
Check in through security. Take off your shoes. Take out your laptop. Just in time to board. Coffee with creamer, please. De-plane. Check for messages. You smile.
Check in through security. Take off your shoes. Take out your laptop. Everyone is boarding. Another coffee packet in your carry-on. De-plane. Check for messages. Your chest tightens. You smile.
Check in through security. Take off your shoes, sir. Your shoes. You're the last to board. One coffee, no creamer. Whiskey, please. De-plane. Check for messages on your way to her.
Check in through security. It's a holiday. The line is long. Take off your shoes. Take out your laptop. Sir, don't forget your laptop. The gate is closing. No, just a beer. De-plane. Check for messages. It's mom. It's dad. It's not her.
Check in through security. Forgot your boarding pass. Forgot your laptop. Christmas lines. Take off your shoes. Miss the flight. The gate is closed.
Check in through security. Take off your shoes. Take out your laptop. Uncharged phone. Call on pay phone. Get here before the storm. I want to see you. The gate is closing.
XxX
His dreams are a patchwork of his life, with and without her:
In one panel, the bookstore is busy and bright. She's standing in front of a shattered window, facing him, hair flying forward from a jet stream thundering through the store, overturning shelves of books, pages tearing out and whipping past her smiling face, pulling it into the ether.
He reaches for her, but tugs on an unwoven stitch into a bank of snow where he lies naked, laughing up at her laughing face; with her chin tucked in and her eyes rolled in, she straddles him. She fingers his fingers, playing, pinioning her body to his, heating the only place that needs to be warm.
The sun frames her lashes and he reaches up to touch, but they return coated in rust, and it tastes like wet copper.
Her movements are fast and hard, dusting up a cold cyclone until she is all lightness and glinting snow. Terrible sparkles cover his lids and shake him deaf and dumb, packed into the snowy bank.
Immobile.
In another frayed frame, his toes are swollen inside the box of his hiking boots.
How many climbs have we done?
They have hours yet to go before turning back. Their photographer, Peter, lags behind on the dip of a saddle linking two summits together.
The trail ends and the stone markers are gone.
Hail pelts at his face and the oxygen tanks are empty. He turns around and Peter slips on a lip of ice. The scenic mountain range disappears with the ground under his feet. Instinct tells him to grip and hold on, hold on, to whatever he can clutch.
They need to climb - quick, up a frozen waterfall, slick and slippery with bronzed moss and calcium. His arms burn. His heart beats at his temples, pushing for release, for a gulp of anything, anything to free him.
He fears he is dying.
He fears his mother will worry.
XxX
They fall asleep in the still of the storm and night skids in on black ice.
Outside his window, a tree gives in to the ruthless weight of accumulated snow. It strains and groans until the thick branch falls in a harsh thud.
It is loud enough to rattle his dreams and wake him.
In a fog, his ass slides against hers as he fidgets and shudders. She has stolen the covers.
He becomes hard and feral, like a stranger.
He turns over and his arms cage her pliant body. He cradles his nose in her neck, desperate for her cinnamon scent.
She's had a lot to drink, probably fending off an inebriated dream.
With a hand splayed on her small hip, he plunges in.
She is suddenly awake. He is suddenly despaired.
His furrowed brow stakes claim in the valley between her shoulder blades, twisting his fingers in her hair and holding on for dear life.
His sinewy limbs press in, hugging tight, and climbing her stroke for stroke. He breaks into a cold sweat.
She pushes her ass against him, moaning in heavy need and newly-sprouted anger that this is happening.
She is barely wet, but getting wetter, in between her scissored legs.
She grabs on to his arm, her body bending for him, her mind confused. "Edward?"
And her voice, the last of what he can stand, rips across his heart. He grips harder and fucks faster, trying, but choking on the words stranded deep in his belly.
She enjoys this for as long as it takes to process that she's not involved in his frantic lovemaking. She is a bystander, wishing he would slow it down, let her in.
She props up an image of Edward's eyes, smiling down at her. Edward, holding her hand while they browse in a bookstore. Edward, spinning her by the waist with a tender touch.
He comes raggedly, sucking in a lungful of fear.
Her images fall off the ledge and shatter.
Bella disengages herself and turns on her belly, tucking her arms and hands underneath her raw body. She turns her cheek into the cool pillow and blinks into the pitch dark. She can hear him toss and turn next to her razor-like anger. He's done and talks to her with shoulder-kisses, but she still feels lonely and pitiful.
The mattress dips and rises behind her. A breeze in her ear apologizes.
The bathroom door shuts.
Maybe I am not enough.
She succumbs to this idea in sleep.
XxX
Edward is in the bathroom, dry heaving into the toilet to a wretched realization.
She belongs to someone else, says the man in the mirror.
What a fool, fool, fool.
By the time his chest subsides, he decides.
A/N:
My betas, Cesca Marie and Write On Time, played good cop and bad cop this week. I won't divulge who was what, but suffice it to say that they are on your side. Lucky.