Superposition

Chapter XIII

Marie

Looking out at the sunset, I light a cigarette and bring it to my lips. Lewis is sitting next to me, silent, on 'our' bench. Discreetly, I glance at his pensive face, his dark brooding eyes battling with his thoughts. It's been two days since my birthday party, and Lewis hasn't said a word to me until he asked me to meet him here. I would give anything to know what he was thinking right now.

'I don't know why you wouldn't tell me you were friendly with Hugo again, Marie.' The way he says my name punctures my heart and I can feel his disapproving glare deep in my bones.

I choose my words carefully before speaking, 'I didn't realise that's something you would've wanted to know.'

Lewis lets out an annoyed groan and starts tapping his fingers on his knee. He only does that when he's angry.

'How many times have we been over this? Just because you had a shitty boyfriend who never made you feel important, doesn't mean I'm the same. I want to know what's going on, Ree. Not just because I don't wanna be blindsided like I was at the party, also because I care. Do you understand?' He turns to look at me and grabs my chin. We lock eyes, 'I care about you, okay? And I was led to believe you cared about me, too. Then you made me look like a fucking idiot.'

I sharply pull back from him, slightly angry but also confused. 'I made you look like an idiot, how?'

Lewis puts his head in his hands and lets out a long sigh, 'I don't know how more obvious I can make it, Marie.'

Lewis

I watch her ever confused face as she tries to pick apart my words. I need her to understand me. With my eyes, I'm begging her to see what I see, to feel what I feel. It's more than a simple yearning, it's hunger. Deprivation. I'm begging her to see how badly I want this - need this. This is something she has to figure out on her own. I refuse to say something that may influence how she feels, or worse, something that will cause her to say she feels the same out of pity. She needs to see what I see.

'Do you remember my tenth birthday, Lew?' She says, finally. I shake my head and she goes on, 'This was before everything went wrong. Before we fell out and before your mum... I was supposed to have a party at my house. I'd invited all the girls in my class. Nobody showed up for hours, but I was convinced they were coming. I thought there could've been a typo on the invite, that they just had the wrong time. So I waited. I sat on my doorstep for hours, hope fading as the minutes passed. But then, someone came and sat beside me. It was you. You asked me what I was doing, and I told you nobody came to my party. You told me to wait there. Five minutes later, you came back with your brothers and your mum. You told me you weren't going to let me have a party by myself. We all went into my back garden, played games and ate cake with my parents, too,' She pauses, 'And do you know what I thought when you showed up?'

'What did you think?' I ask, taken aback.

Marie hesitates before saying, 'I thought to myself... that one day, I was going to marry you.'

What is she insinuating? Does this mean she understands? I inch myself closer to her and gently place my hand on her leg. Her gaze latches onto mine as our faces move ever so slightly closer together. 'We were just kids, right?' I'm practically begging her to tell me no, to tell me nothing has changed.

'We're just kids now,' Marie smiles.

I look down at her lips, then back into her eyes, longing for permission. As she brings her face nearer to mine, and our noses are millimetres away from each other, her phone begins ringing loudly and she lurches away from me to pick it up. I almost kick myself in annoyance.