Author's note: thank you very much for all the reviews...!
December, 14th:
If you don't react now then pack and leave because your life is being reduced to a series of quiet failures. Who do you think you are, Maura Isles? Who do you think you are to kiss Jane and leave her like that without the mere explanation? Perhaps you don't really know why you did that but it isn't enough of a reason to ignore her. You must have troubled her.
She deserves an explanation.
Stop this game of cat and mouse. It is ridiculous. How old are you? Twelve? No, thirty-eight. It may sound crazy to you – you may not have seen the years disappear in your back – but you are already in your late thirties so you'd better assume your choices.
Do you regret what you did? Even if you aren't sure why you kissed her, do you honestly regret this? Be honest with yourself if you can't be with Jane. Is this kiss a regret? A mistake?
You are tired of running away, of pretending things that don't fool anyone. Why wouldn't you stop – take a deep breath – and consider another direction to take? For once... Why wouldn't you try and give it a chance at life?
You are in love, embrace it instead of digging it deep inside your heart; in its darkest corner. What is it that you have always been afraid of who you were? Of your feelings, the decisions you had to take? They make of your existence what it is, they build your path and strengthen the woman you are. Sure you don't know where they lead but why wouldn't you trust them for once?
You won't break down into a thousand pieces. You won't die at the scene. Maybe you will feel hurt – in pain – but you will keep on breathing with the comforting feeling to have tried; to have given a chance to what lies in your heart.
Take a deep breath – face your reflection in a mirror – and repeat to yourself that you need to talk to her, to make things clear once and for all. It lasted too long for you to remain silent over it. It is time to go and see. What are you supposed to tell her? Well... Words will come up by themselves. It is obvious because this is what they always do in the end.
You are a big girl, Maura Isles. Stop moping around, mistaking an absence of decisions for fate. It isn't the same and will never be. You might not control it all in life, you are still the one who makes choices. Nobody forces you into anything. It all depends on you.
Nobody but you.
So make yourself a favor and go. Go tell her everything before it being too late. You know that you will not be able to handle remaining in the darkness if she happened to find someone else. What if she gets married? What if she has children? Will you be there – somewhere in the shadows – silent before the ruins of your fantasies? Will you clutch to your dreams, desperately?
This is too pitiful for you. You can't accept to lower yourself to this.
6pm
Jane tied up her hair in a loose ponytail then sank on the couch. She grabbed the remote control – barely repressed a yawn – and began to surf through channels. She hadn't gone out of the whole day and wandered between the living-room and her bedroom looking for a way to get rid of her sudden fatigue. She wasn't sure whether it was a psychological or a physical one. She hadn't felt fine since the kiss on Friday evening; out there on the ice rink. Too many things were going through her head.
Her eyes scanned the room absentmindedly and stopped on her cell phone. Not a single person had tried to reach her since the day before. Matt had been the last one. He hadn't insisted when she had turned down his invitation. Was it supposed to be a sign of some sort? Perhaps he had only tried to be polite and wasn't interested in her. In all honesty, she couldn't care less. She wasn't interested in him either.
...
6.30pm
Maura turned the lights on and stepped in her bathroom. She walked to the mirror and looked at her reflection; impassive. She had postponed it all day long. Anyway, she had been on call and had had to spend most of the afternoon at her office.
She slowly grabbed her hairbrush and passed it through her blond curls. Once done, she did her hair in a bun and closed her eyes. The ceramic of the sink – under the palm of her hands – sent a shiver down her spine. The contact was cold, too cold.
Shaking away whatever thoughts had made it to her mind, she opened back her eyes and walked out before heading to her closet. For once, she didn't choose her clothes meticulously but just grabbed a coat that abandoned casually on an armchair and put it on.
She rushed down the stairs – looked for Bass all around – and spotted him by the couch. She made a few steps towards him then squatted down. She bent over, her lips making contact with his shell in a quiet kiss.
"You are the only one who has always been by my side."
She stood back up before the incongruous scene she had just thrown herself in and turned around to walk to the door. She grabbed her car keys and left in the night.
It was freezing outside. The snow had stopped falling but the roads were icy and the sidewalks a bit glimmering under the pale streetlights. She turned on her right and began to walk to her Prius.
Why had Beacon Hill to be so quiet at night? The silence was deafening. She needed music, a crowd. Noise.
Anything that would prove her that she was still alive and not simply wandering through a dream of some sort.
The drive to Jane's apartment seemed to last an eternity. All along she thought about nothing but her doubts, the words she would tell her friend once she came to face her. She hadn't found the perfect – most beautiful – sentence yet.
As a matter of fact, she hadn't managed to elaborate anything at all in her head.
A bit blankly, she stepped out of her car and observed her friend's building on the other side of the road. The lights in Jane's apartments were on. All of them. Maura frowned. What if the Italian was not alone? What if she interrupted her in the middle of a date, of a dinner with her brothers? It was not something she had thought about until now.
Biting her lips, the medical examiner nonetheless crossed the street and stepped into the building. It was too late to come backwards. Or better said, she didn't feel like doing so. Not this time around. A strange courage seemed to have embraced her as she had left her house, a near state of intoxication while she was completely sober. Unless she was simply on the verge of passing out?
She knocked on the door, swallowed hard.
December, 14th. 7.02pm. Temperature: 32°F. A hard wind blowing hard through the streets. Within an hour, the snow will fall again until the next morning. People will go back home or head to some other place; restaurant, movie theater. They will all be busy. The world will keep on turning.
As if nothing has happened. Nothing relevant, that is.
But for Jane and Maura, it will be different. The brunette will open the door and – speechless – let her friend come in. For long seconds, none of them will move nor talk. They will only look at each other in the eyes and remain still as if unsure of their next move. The silence of the place will be a strange prelude to the stormy events that will follow.
Before her incapacity to make any kind of sentence, Maura will rush to her friend and capture her lips for another kiss. A very eager one, this time. Not a shy copy of the unexpected one on the ice rink. This brand new one will own strength and responsibility; the taste of assumed feelings and a subtle shade of an implicit confession.
Jane will not complain. She will not try to run away from it as much as she will still have a hard time to understand why it is suddenly happening. Too afraid to lose herself in fantasies, she will not think immediately that Maura might have developped feelings for her. She will be cautious for knowing the taste of disappointment way too well.
And yet... There is not a single person on Earth who kisses another one without experimenting some sort of desire; even if untold.
She will simply let Maura do, echoing her caresses with all the care in the world; a bare honesty. A rather obvious apprehension. Her hands will be shaking, the tears brushing the corner of her eyes just when she feels Maura's own ones die against her lips. Out of boldness – an incomprehensible one – she will take the honey blonde's hand before leading her to her bedroom.
Their clothes will get scattered on the floor, tracing a path of colors to the bed; accompanied by the quiet music of sighs and moans. Short breaths. The imperceptible sound of flesh against flesh.
They will not notice the snow.
Locked in their own world – in their own complicated bubble – they will focus on the sweetness of the moment and the exhilaration of repressed feelings. The absence of logic, or at least the one they have built in their respective head.
And when the caresses – the kisses – will have brought them to the paroxysm of their feelings, they will simply settle in each other's arms to enjoy that sentiment of perfection and serenity in silence.
Why speaking when words aren't needed? Why being afraid of a world deprived of sounds? It can be warm, inviting. Restful. Especially when you let the hours fly away, cuddled against the only person who makes sense in your life; who gives a purpose to all of your actions.
This is Jane and Maura right now. From 7.02pm to the moment they fall asleep in each other's arms, in the early hours of the morning. They haven't talked about anything but have expressed a lot more than all the topics they have treated until now nonetheless.
In silence.