3 - Mine
Monica watches Gloria go, keeping her gaze fixed on a point over his shoulder. His eyes follow hers, watching the young angel they've mentored together for the last year go and it finally feels real. The time has come and she feels like she might actually be perishing in a lake of fire. He pauses and the wait, the silence, is deafening.
"I, uh …" he starts, stepping forward, stumbling over the emotion building in his throat, "I want you to have this."
He holds up the fine gold watch he's carried for as long as she's known him, his most prized and perhaps only material possession. Try as she does to keep it together in present company, she cannot help the sound that falls from her lips.
"Just to … remember all the good times we had together," he says, slipping the watch into her hand, his fingers tracing lightly over its smooth curves.
She is in agony, fighting the inclination to break completely, to unravel the carefully constructed front behind which they have both hidden for so long. She can't because Tess stands mere feet away to bear witness and the only thing that she fears more than saying goodbye is what might happen if anyone else ever knew.
"I will," she says, praying that the quake in her voice does not betray her, that the disintegration of her heart is not plainly advertised for all to see.
He steps closer, takes her into his arms, his hand in her hair, holding her tight to him, keeping her in one piece. She doesn't know how she will let go, how she can possibly say goodbye now.
But he whispers something in her ear, so low that she almost doesn't hear it, and then she knows that this isn't goodbye, at least not yet.
He releases her reluctantly, takes a steadying breath.
"You're gonna do great," he says, with a small, encouraging smile.
In the next moment, he is gone and she does not have any tears left.
Meet me, he had said and she doesn't need to ask where. She tosses the keys to the red Cadillac on the counter of the small house in the woods and he is waiting for her. She is in his arms before she can blink.
"Will you let me love you?"
They were whispered words, asking for consent because he will not, cannot, do this unless he knows that she is absolutely sure. She nods, her eyes slipping closed, delirious with longing, so sure she's burning alive waiting for his touch. He doesn't take her nod for an answer, takes her face in his hands, softly commands that she open her eyes, look at him.
"Say it, out loud. I want to hear you say it."
He doesn't just want to hear it, he needs to hear her, needs to hear that gentle lilting voice say yes to him. And so she does, with a breathy sob, trembling — "Yes."
She reaches up to take his hands from her face, demanding his touch now because she simply needs it, has wanted this for so long, and it's happening at last, after years and years of buildup.
His hands feel like magic, touching her in places no one ever has, his mouth hungry and eager to explore her, to ravish her, to make her his.
This is the goodbye they deserve.
"Andrew … I don't know how I can just drive away without you now," she says, utterly overcome, thoroughly conquered by him.
It is a transparent confession, one constructed by love and yearning and uncertainty in one.
"No matter the distance or time between us, don't forget that you are mine."