The lock clicks. The hinges creak as the door swings open, but then glide smoothly as the door closes. Her steps are inaudible against the floor.
Max shifts on the couch. The blankets rustle. He raises himself on his elbows, hair sticking up in every direction.
"Hello," he whispers, but even that is loud in the quiet apartment.
She smiles. She drops her bag on the floor, letting it lean against the leg of one of the chairs at the dinner table (their only table). "Hello."
As she walks, she pauses. There's something ancient in her posture, a dormant goddess put to rest by man's work and toil.
He saw photos of her when she was younger. She was radiant - like the fucking sun. She smiled like there was nothing funnier in the world, and if he met her when they were younger, he would've been head over heels for her. Now, the only remnants of that smile is in the lines that tug along the sides of her mouth when she spoke, and in the beginnings of crow's feet by her eyes. She's still beautiful - by god, she is - but her youthfulness has grown scarce.
"You're beautiful," Max says despite himself.
She smiles. She's brilliant, illuminating, brighter than the fucking sun. "Thank you," she says, and Max can hear the smile in her voice.
She steps close to the couch. There's a perfectly good (shitty) double bed in the other room, but she clambers over Max onto the two-seater loveseat. They have to squirm to find a position where her elbow isn't in his face, or where his leg isn't jammed up against her side, but they do.
"I have to wash up," she says, sounding small in their space.
"Sleep," Max says.
And on that ratty, little couch, they make it work.
YOU ARE READING
'til the road and sky align
Short Story│i promised you many things when we were young. i want to make those true. Somewhere in between falling out of love, and falling back in love, Max meets Yale in the middle. │title from angela by the lumineers │story not in lowercase │a series of vi...
