with a pull on a thread and a split,
fall back open
what a fool to believe for a minute
that I could hold it
***
Their shadows grow longer, stretching out along the pavement. Just darkness in the shape of him going on and on until it gets distorted at the top of his head and it looks like there’s just an absence of anything and everything spilling out of his head.
(as if absence were something real and concrete, something she’s held in her own hands and head and heart this year)
She hears his shoes, scuffing against the white line of her parking space. He’s downcast eyes and long eyelashes then (always). The sun sinks and sinks as his lips open and close.
They’ve been here before.
And she thinks by now he’d be tired of concrete and the toes of their shoes and how it’s always growing dark and they’re always alone here with the rest of the world spinning around them. But he puts his hands (tight fists) deep in his pockets and breathes out through his nose.
She waits. Even though maybe it’s her turn to part her lips and look up at his half closed eyes and tell him something that’ll make him feel like the slowly unwinding string of a kite, all dizzy and weightless yet still fated to come down or get stuck.
His voice comes out finally yet suddenly, whisper soft and ghostlike. He bends his head down even further, chin touching chest and then, “I need to know if you feel anything for me at all.”
She hesitates, that’s her mistake here. She hesitates and shifts her weight to her right foot so she’s inside his shadow. And before she can respond with her overdue, too late, not enough, “I do. I mean, I feel- I love you.”
Before that can happen, his shadow moves and the orange, sunken sun stares her in the face as he says, “Because if you don’t- And, you know, I don’t really know if I would- I just- Even if you did, I don’t know if I would even want it now. It’s been over a year, you know? And I’m going to ask Karen to marry me unless you- You know what? No. It isn’t even dependent on your answer right now. I just need to know.”
His words tumble out of him, shaken and twisted. His glass eyes look over her shoulder and he shakes his head. And this time he doesn’t wait before continuing with, “I put myself out there for you last year. And you can’t do that for me? I don’t know. I just think that maybe I deserve more than that, Pam. And there was this time when I thought I wouldn’t be happy at all without you, but I am. I’m so happy now and I can’t lose that so just-”
Her hand reaches out, finds his forearm, tries to feel his skin through his shirt and his suit jacket. But there’s just a quiet warmth that pushes itself into her bones. She tries, “I’m sorry,” but it doesn’t come that way. It comes out as, “Don’t. I love you. So much.” And then, fingers moving down and circling his wrist, “Please.”
He closes his eyes, water seeping out of the corners. He steps forward, his feet moving on instinct. And then there’s the solidity of her body against his, the spilling out feeling of surrender (not defeat, not quite).
He kisses her hairline, her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, her cheekbones, the corners of her mouth. As much of her face as he can, a new form of memorization. She tilts her head up and he finds her mouth with his eyes still closed.
Sun down, the moon comes up and their shadows vanish.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Lyrics/title from Fall Back Open by Now It's Overhead.
Also: I own nothing.
Also: I own nothing.
unfold is the author of 102 other stories.
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