Rendezvous

Awakening

"Sara?" Michael repeated slightly louder when his gentle approach coaxed no response from Sara. Michael dipped his head and hunched his shoulders a little, his eyes meeting Sara's and drawing her attention back to him. "Sara, are you ok?" Michael quizzed, his voice full of worry and despair.

Sara took a dry gulp and the bubble of air slid painfully down her throat where it sat burning in her lungs. She shook her head quickly, blinking to regain her composure and her hands clenched tighter around the note held tightly to her spine. Sara offered Michael a weak smile and hurriedly pushed a tendril of her auburn mess behind her ear. "I'm fi..." she squeaked before coughing into her clenched fist. "I'm fine," she assured with a rosy pink array decorating her cheeks.

Michael's gaze left her and fell upon the front door. Sara watched as he lifted his arm to point at it, his freshly scrubbed muscles rippling beneath his skin and twisting his form invitingly. "Was someone here?" Michael asked, concerned they had been discovered. "I heard the door close," he said, half a question and half a factual comment. As he turned to face her once more, a bead of the now cold water trickled down from his growing hair, slid down the bridge of his nose and dripped from its tip, hitting the flat, carpeted floor without a sound.

"No," Sara shook her head and let her eyes linger at the door while the sharp folds of the paper ball in her hand dug into her palm. "It was me," she told Michael who gave her a confused look. His eyebrows pulled together in a frown and his head titled to one side like a puppy in response to a whistle.

"I don't understand. Where did you go?" Michael said, his voice remaining low and calm as he pondered the thoughts that ravaged his mind. They stood together for a while in silence and Sara's leg twitched and wobbled where she stood. Sara lowered her head to avoid Michael's wide eyed stare and her tongue darted out to moisten her lips before her teeth clamped onto the flesh and her lips disappeared behind her teeth. "What if somebody saw you?" Michael asked when Sara turned silent once again, his flat palm extended towards her with invisible offering.

"They didn't," Sara spoke low and into her chest, the words muffled by her pinched windpipe.

"But they could have done," Michael insisted with panic. His feet fell silent on the floor as he strode to the greying curtains and peered out between the folds of fabric. Michael lifted his hand to flatten a fold of curtain, his fingers lightly tickling the material as it moved. There was nobody in sight and a few cars had left the parking lot since they had arrived. Michael crooked his neck but the willow obscured their car, only the heat radiating from its roof could be seen through the motionless branches.

"Is that all you care about?" Sara sneered and Michael's head snapped towards her, is face even more confused than before. Michael side stepped from the window, his feet cold from the shower and paused his frame a few feet in front of Sara. His scent invaded her nostrils, twirling around her senses and exciting her body. Combined with the sight of Michael in a towel, Sara was certainly feeling some pressure and her harsh tone towards him was proof.

"Of course not," Michael offered gently. "I was just saying," he shrugged and Sara noticed the steam had stopped curling and reaching skywards from Michael's torso. Sara's eyes fell and focused on her feet, itchy inside her flat soled slip on shoes that were still splattered with white dust from the factory. Michael watched her in silence and he knew something was wrong. Things had been wrong before he had gone to shower, but now they were a different kind of wrong. "Sara, have I..." Michael pried but his soft words were cut of sharply and his mouth fell agape with disillusion.

"I was going to leave." Sara blurted on a whisper and pulled the crinkled note from behind her back. She fiddled with it between her shaking fingers a little, constantly folding and refolding the top corner of the medium. Sara lifted her hazel orbs to look into Michael's riveted face. It was like the face of a child when you tell them a parent has died, pale and plastered with anguish of the future. "I wrote you this note," Sara's voice cracked as she spoke, gaining strength on every uninterrupted word.