Good lord, do these bring back some memories. Plots never taken, side stories never realized, options upon options.
She apologizes. She sums up the wrongs and carries them first in the cavernous vault of her heart and then dangling from her shoulders. Admissions like lead that start buried deep only to be brought to surface to hang as heavy poison on a burdened frame. At times she sways and buckles between her ever present cargo and the path she must follow. It's a struggle he has watched and selfishly justified heaping ever more on the top. He waited for her to topple. But the keen trainer of time has made her strong enough to carry and him too weak to watch or stomach.
.
.
Ever present but not all encompassing. He wakes most mornings with a faded memory coasting through the last wave of dreams. The next flash maybe at the water fountain or when hamburgers are served for lunch. But in between its like she never happened. Like nothing ever happened: the worst of it and what brought out the best in him. Forgotten for vast swaths of time between jogged memories that still his thoughts but no longer ache in his soul.
.
.
It's not until he was lobbed against the wall getting a respite from heaving his regrets that his aching mind was able to start processing. There were obviously drinks. There had been dinner earlier. He vaguely remembered being on the roof and being in the pit but he's not sure in what order. His head snapped, he leaned, he recalled the body in his bed and could see the delicate, white foot hanging in mid air. He did not remember that, her, what ever they did that landed him naked between the sheets. He is suddenly 8 and afraid of girls, afraid of approaching, afraid of everything outside the door.
.
.
He's a bundle of nerves. He's thought about it hundreds of times, he's dreampt it a few times each week. The idea doesn't scare him enough to be a fear but it does have him anxiously checking everything twice and then again and a fourth time before the door opens. And he's home, finally, setting work aside and catching nervous glances and tight lipped chat. Tonight they're trying something new, something the younger of the two just hasn't ever attempted, but for his love, will in just a thousand heartbeats.