DAYLIGHT FADING

fourteen | the weight of all the words he tried to say

                       | fourteen: the weight of all the words he tried to say |

                                                                   or

                                              | cast no shadow: oasis |

We don’t speak, not even when we get to the front door of my house. It’s not home, never will be. London’s mine, not some sleeping village in East Anglia.

When I find myself at the door, I’m reluctant to leave the small ceasefire that my choice of lyric created. Who knew that Keane had such a profound effect on Adam Marr?

“I guess this is it,” his words are sad because he knows the same thing that I do. The second we leave each other, everything is gone. The anger will surface again, the understanding will be lost. We’re too fallible, too human, to attain forgiveness in such a small space of time when we’ve got two years of impossible feelings between us.

And of course, the one secret I can never tell.

I don’t reply as I unlock my house, hoping he’ll understand that the lack of affirmative means that I’d like him to wait. I quickly walk down the hallway to my living room and take the door off to the right for my bedroom.

The last time Adam Marr was outside my house, we’d both ended up in this room.

I quickly cut off that thought before it can do any damage and reach underneath my bed for a guitar case, but it resurfaces.

Frantic tugging at buttons, pulling at t-shirts and buckles until there was nothing but skin and kisses and…

My hand curls round the edge of the case, surprised at how vivid the memory is. That may have been the closest I’d ever come to love but I hadn’t expected it to be quite so unsullied by time.

Shaking my head to rid myself of the memory, I pick up the guitar case and begin to walk outside with it. I halt quickly, before picking up the pack of smokes and lighter off my beside table, just for good measure.

Something in me falls when I realise that Adam is not on my porch, but I keep going anyway. I had plans and I can continue with them, even without him.

I pull the strap of the case over my shoulder and lock my door behind me before I catch sight of someone in my peripheral vision in shock. Adam’s hand is gently rested against the front wall of my house, silhouetted by the faint orange glow of a sun that is beginning to sink.

“I love you”

“Stop it”

“I love you”

“You’re lying!”

His head slowly lifts and when he turns, he has to blink several times, as if he is just as surprised to see me as I am him. I’d almost convinced myself that all of the memories this house held were forgotten, but they were just waiting.

Adam doesn’t speak, doesn’t even look surprised by the pack of cigarettes dangling from my hand, just steps to my side as we walk down the driveway. I’m suddenly reminded of one scene from 1999’s Mansfield Park, when Fanny is sat in the carriage with Edmund on the way back to Mansfield.

Surely we are beyond speaking when words are clearly not enough.

As we slowly walk down the pavement bordering the beach, I cannot help but glance at his tattoo. Perhaps we’re not as different as we’d like to believe. We’ve both got our vices, believe wholeheartedly in music and always decide that we know both what’s right even if there’s a mountain of evidence to tell us that we’re wrong.