Fifteen Years Ago
There was something strongly tangible about the air. It smelt of something like rusted metal, iron that had bled through and oxidized then. There was a fire — annoyingly so that like a chalice filled to the top let itself overflow and drip down the sides with newfound rage. Around the leaves that had fallen on the lush green grass, painting it in a sea of their death, heat simmered. Humid and dry all at once, the weather was inherently not September. Sunlight blinked by and kept the stove hot for hours as a secret cool air blew. Was it a hallucination or a figment of their imagination?
Like lust and luxury, all things lustrous collapsed over the bones of their glass house. The tears and the pain washed anew, could not withstand the force. An early demise. Gifted to them, to their affections that had not blossomed enough. Death was voluntary. Demise the only virtue they had. Amongst silent eye looks and meetings of crushed palms and letters failed to have been sent over. Sparks of pain that had been carved into their fates at their own hands still flew. At night, when the stars refused to be their refuge and kept them painfully stranded from heaven — was when they realized the pain in it's fullest.
Myra's fingers twisted the cobble shaded veil in agony. It stuck between the diamonds of her rings, tearing tiny holes into it every now and then. The heart like this expensive cloth was sensitive and shattered with ease. It was left bruised. It rarely ever healed. Her lips painted carmine pinched together into a frown. The empty muscles of her brain searched for answers to questions she had long lost. Myra's phone dimmed and buzzed in the centre of her lap. The ivory of her dress contrasted the charcoal of her phone. She tapped away at the glossy cover, her fingers seldom stopping.
It had been a lousy forty eight hours since Aryan had given her the deadline. Time had chugged by slow. Almost impossible to pass. Myra had felt the curious glances of her acquaintances, perhaps wondering what had gone on behind the scenes. Aryan had vanished and she was worried — she did not want him to stay in pain because of her pressed attitude. Now, seated in the middle of a pan-asian restaurant Myra awaited his arrival. Her fingers crossed under the gauze of her veil, hoping he would show up. Aryan was fifteen minutes late, and her friends reminded her that he might have stood her up.
He's not like that, she had told them in the man's defense. Her tone guarded and cold.
How much do you know him? They had reiterated. Tearing her heart into pieces more than one.
Sipping the cold water once more, her nerves frazzled under the façade of her prepped skin. The thrumming of her heart reached the ends of her hair, her irises dimmed in pain and goosebumps erupted all across her being. Myra felt trapped inside the world she had woven for herself. Despite the dreams of sweet love, and fairytales ; Myra had built herself a nightmare. She were the ravenous beast and Aryan the damsel in distress. Tapping away at the linoleum table cloth and twisting the life out of her red napkin she counted down to ten. If he came — well and good. If he didn't, she would walk away and erase herself from his life — as he had asked — as she deserved.
"Ahem!"
The sounds of a forced cough brought Myra out of her tyrannical thoughts. Blinking back into reality she stood up from her chair with a step too harsh, dropping her water all over her shirt. Using the stained napkin to wipe it off, whilst he stood in silence, observing her from underneath his hooded eyes.
"I'm sorry — sorry I'm just all over the place." She stuttered.
Aryan chuckled at that, shaking his head, helping her sit back in place. His hands lingered for a moment more on top of her seat, before drifted into place in front of her. On the edge of his tongue he could taste her anxiousness.
