Page 9 of Light As A Feather
Something about their energy has shifted. There’s a heaviness to it that presses down, the shadow of expectation reaching for me.
“Come on. Just tell me already, what do you want from me?”
The click of a button finally breaks the stillness. “That’s a complicated question. One I’m not inclined to answer just yet.” The distortion in their voice would be comical if it weren’t for the current that catches in the air, electric and hot.
“I’m not a patient woman.” I prod at it, not caring anymore if I kick a potential hornet’s nest.
I jump at the jarring slap of their shoes on the floor when they slide down from the edge of the table. There’s no hesitation as they walk behind me; their hands grip the back of my chair.
My disdain for being close to strangers, surprisingly, isn’t activated. Instead, I wait on pins and needles as they lean down until I can feel their breath against my hair.
“Believe me, I’mwellaware.” The emphasis they put on well sends a chill down my spine.
“What? Are you some kind of creep? Are you a stalker or something?” My heart beats faster. Even if I hadn’t noticed someone following me, surely Ivan would have, wouldn’t he? Speaking of which, his absence is strange, unbelievable. And yet, I can feel him nearby.
“Creep? No. Stalker? I wouldn’t call it that.” Beneath the mechanical tone of the machine creeps the whisper of familiarity.
Second by second, that misty slip of something solidifies enough for me to grab it, but I can’t fully latch onto it. My stomach drops as it tugs me forward into a well of the past, and suddenly, I’m drowning in nostalgia. Because that voice, the hint of it, contains an echo of one that once comforted me through the darkest nights, said my name with love, moaned it with desire, promised me the world. One that should be firmly in my past.But what if…
“Tell me your name.” I’m terrible at names; it shouldn’t even matter. And yet, it does. It matters more than anything.
“You think you know me now?”
The question sows doubt, it claws away at the connections my mind has conjured that all lead to a logical conclusion. My mouth goes dry, my lips buzz with anticipation. “Maybe.”
“Maybe you know me…” He pauses, but instead of tightening the control over his voice, it’s raspier. “Maybe you used to. But based on the last few years, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume you’d forgotten me completely. Can’t say you didn’t try.”
There’s a grit to his words, it’s rough against the hidden tender parts of my calloused heart. But it’s not anger, it’s not entitlement or betrayal; it’s pain.Anguish.Longing.
It’s the brittle timbre of love and loss.
I don’t need sight. I don’t need verbal confirmation. I know who stands in front of me. There’s nobody else who could disarm me so completely with just their mere presence.
I could name this man across lifetimes, but I haven’t allowed myself to utter it in years. Not in private, not in my dreams. Doing so now is like teetering on a ledge, the precipice of a fall into the unknown.
No, that’s not right, I always knew this was waiting for me—the painful descent into my fate.
“I’ll give you one guess.” All pretense drops as the machine clatters to the floor.
With a shaky breath, I step off the edge. “Hawthorne?”
“You don’t sound too sure,” I taunt as I circle her with measured steps, my finger trailing along her shoulders until I’m standing in front of her again. When I stop, the tattooed key on my finger lines up with her lock at the dead center of her chest.
For a moment, just a moment, I envision myself reaching inside and holding her heart in my hand where it belongs, feeling the soothing beat of it against my palm. I crave that intimacy with her. Instead, I settle for conversation.
“Is that your final answer?”
“Yes,” she breathes hesitantly, like she doesn’t want to give life to it, doesn’t believe what’s coming out of her mouth, because then she’d have to contend with the inevitability of me. An errant pain wounds me at the reminder of what I’ve becometo her—forbidden, forgotten, a cursed memento of everything she’s been through.
She treats us like Pandora’s Box. Like everything in our past is a powder keg that must be kept locked away and armored, or it’ll blow everything up. But the opposite couldn’t be more true. That’s where the answers are; that’s where our salvation is. Trapped, stuck, stagnant.
We can’t go on like this. I refuse. I’m so close to opening the door she slammed between us. But the tormented man within me isn’t quite ready to walk through it and let it all go. Not when I was the one left inside the crumbling walls with our demons. Left behind, they tore into me, slashing, biting, digging into my flesh, my mind, my soul.
I’ve always tried to be a good man. But I’m not coming out the other side of this fully intact. Some of the best parts of me have gone necrotic in the depravity of her absence. I didn’t allow bitterness or cruelty to fester in those holes that were left behind, but I wasn’t left unchanged. There’s a voracious need to be whole again. And at this moment, only one thing can help me get there.
“Say it,” I demand. “Say it again.”
“Hawthorne…” Her voice cracks.
