Twice Shy

15 Twice Shy

I am sorely, and magnificently, a hypocrite.

I'm still trying to decide what this kiss means when we break it. I pull away first, nonetheless our eyes watching each other. He might still have weapons behind his back, a string of doubt encloses over my head. Instantly mine return to an arm's length.

The daze wears off like some sort of spell and I conclude that Ilyaz's eyes are a bloody hypnosis.

I'm grateful when he gets up first, contradicting his usual persuasive nature, and I can finally breathe. I'm not usually a jumpy person, but I'm hurtling straight towards a panic attack. The emotions racing through me is bewildering, and I don't know what's going through Ilyaz. I doubt I even understand my own when I run out of the room, conscious of Ilyaz's gaze pinned on me. Again, it's like I'm moving underwater, and Ilyaz sees through it.

I'm unknowingly sending with my gait. The flushed skin, splayed fingers, and how I'm barely touching the floor before I've climbed the stairs to my bedroom, back pressed against the hardwood door. It's never been so obvious that he sees right through me, but the question is: how long has he been watching?

I can still feel his gaze pinned on me even when I'm lying in bed, heart thumping erratically, eyes wide open to absolute darkness.

It's very late when I think I hear the doorknob rattle, and the weight of another on my bed. Perhaps I imagined it, because when my eyes open again, it's dawn and Ilyaz was never here.

__________________________

I get dressed in the frail morning light after covering the small lovebites sprawled over my skin before creeping onto landing.

Ilyaz's door is ajar, so I tiptoe closer. His bed is empty, the comforter peeled back. I know what that blanket feels like against my bare skin. I regard it like an old friend I haven't seen in a long time, along with the headboard we picked out together. The curtains we picked out together. In those early days we would say yes to anything, floating on the high of trying to make each other happy. I would have slept on a sleeping bag if that was what he wanted.

His new bedroom is arranged the same way as our old one. The mattress is new, since I took our other one. Throwing a quick glance at the door, I sit down on the bed and do a little bounce. This is so much better than mine.

I study the empty space beside his dresser and imagine mine next to it. My nightstand should sit on the right side of the bed, and its absence turns the whole room wrong. He keeps one of his pillows in the space where my head should lie.

It's a bad idea, lingering in here, but I'm too nosy for my own good. I rummage through his closet, touching all his crewnecks and dry-cleaned suits. The ivory button-down he wore at our disastrous engagement photo shoot. Our smiles were forced in every picture. Between takes, we muttered under our breath and accused the other one of not trying, of not wanting to be there.

One of those pictures is supposed to be in a frame on his nightstand. The nightstand contains only a lamp. My heart plummets almost, but then I spot the frame hanging on the wall. He's switched out the engagement photo neither of us was trying in and replaced it with a memory that takes me back to this past winter, days after our engagement. It's a bit blurry, and my arm is disproportionately wide because I'm holding it out to snap the picture.

From the paint on the walls, I'm guessing it's from his cousin, Shehryar's housewarming party. As a gag, we had got him a gun that shoots marshmallows. Ilyaz is right beside me, head on my shoulder. At the last second our eye contact abandons the camera, noticing a marshmallow stuck to the ceiling above us. My hand unconsciously strokes through his hair and holds his head to the cradle of my neck in what strikes me as an affectionate gesture I haven't done in forever. Just like that, a posed picture becomes a candid one.