You wrote that everything comes full circle, how true it now does seem. Standing in front of you, waiting for your eyes to attend me, the grey warmth, the neutral fire to land on me and burn me up. The amorous mind, my sole companion. Because when your eyes finally do land on me, your stare a finite resource making it abundantly more valuable, they weigh me down. You stop me, you stop the world from spinning, you stop the clocks from ticking and yet it runs full circle. It was Frankenbergs all over again, I catch your eyes and never want to let go. I don't want you to let me go, not again. I want you to want me excessively. I want you now, right now, ignore everyone else because at that moment it was just us. Your lips painted rouge defying all of the familiar faces of every woman in this room, you somehow oppose predictability but supply the truth. Because if it were anyone else, perhaps they'd fixate on something else, a form of distraction. But not you, you just need to give me a hint of a smile, or a whisper of your subtly husky and forever alluring voice and you know you have me. But I am trembling like when I first saw you. You, however, have the regained strength and your original confidence. You rise from the table in the oak room, without a word, so elegantly dominating everyone's attention, but it's mine you want. It's requited, I thought to myself. Pushing your chair backwards, reaching a hand in my direction. Smiling so deeply from your eyes as much as your mouth. "Everyone this is Therese..." my heart roared into motion like tiny pistons of a train, pummelling continuously, I could hear the rattling in my ears. This is when I need to walk over, one foot after another. It required all of and none of my focus. After all, I was hers. "I invited her, I hope you don't mind. I have a feeling she will grow on you." Carol's voice enticing as ever rang clear, a gentle command to my imminent surrender.
"Hello" I said regarding the people like a disbelieved imaginary friend, they were merely rumours of ghosts, people who didn't feel real. They were something that could effortlessly be forgotten, or ignored. Their presence so insignificant it became questionable. They spoke for what felt like hours but equally less than a second, I could look at Carol and feel the births and deaths of whole universes in an instant. For the most part I was able to ignore the chatter, the clattering of plates and the indistinct noises people made upon the arrival of their meals. Up until the woman across from Carol started to recall the last time they had seen each other.
"Oh, it must have been well before New Years."
"It seems so", Carols response held the same minimalistic structure, spoken like a prophecy.
"How was your New Years?" The woman asked, not that I could remember her name, not that it mattered. But honestly the question caught me off guard, because I remember that night that we spent in Waterloo. How we had indulged in each other so lovingly, how I felt her kiss for the first time. My hand connecting with hers as she loosened her robe. I could feel it all. I became self conscious about how I was sitting and where my eyes would fall. So I stared at my hands placed on the white tablecloth and the chair all of a sudden felt as if it could swallow me whole. Carol remained composed, even though I could hear her heart echo to the same intermittent drum beat as mine. I remembered those weeks leading up to now and how I wanted to rip my heart from within me, as if it was sickening for it to remain beating in place without her.
"Well, it was wonderful. Therese and I took a trip to the country, Harge wanted some time with Rindy, so I thought it appropriate. It was a pleasant trip, despite visiting Waterloo, we managed to have a good time." Her comments received amused murmurs and I worried about how she felt over Waterloo, and how she had hidden the truth without telling a lie. During her answer my chair felt buckled to hers. Her hand slipped onto my thigh, running gently upward beneath the table, she squeezed briefly before she withdrew. It's like she knew how I was feeling and exactly what I was questioning, she knew how to calm me. Because that squeeze was a form of reassurance, a reminder that she thinks of those nights we spent on the trip. The calm before the storm, so it seems. "Unfortunately I had to rush home early, which I regret now. But at the time it was urgent." She plucked a cigarette from her compact, bringing it to her lips as she formulated the flame. "Besides, I think understood myself a little more after coming home." She inhaled on her cigarette, exhaled and looked at me. My eyes fixated on her steadily, she was trying to apologise and justify her leaving. She didn't need to, I knew it hurt her as much as it did to myself. She had more at risk. I rest my hand on her forearm, her elbow bent holding her cigarette. For the first time I saw her eyes hollowly full of apologies, unnecessary apologies.
"It's all okay now though", I forgot that we were in company. "We all want to go home after visiting Waterloo." I commented, trying to relieve any surreptitious suspicions. The others at the table laughed at my comment, and Carol just focused on me the way she did when I walked in, amorously proud. The woman across remarked that most people avoid going to Waterloo in the first place. But I'd willingly go back, as long as it was with Carol. It was regardless where we went, I just wanted to get away from what I had known.
The rest of the evening was a blur of conversing, drinks being thrown back and ice tumbling in glasses. One of the men at the table was drunk so Carol and I propped him up against the wall as we waited for his cab to arrive. We laughed all the while, the way we once had on our trip. It was pleasant to say the least. Once everyone had a means of getting home, I wonder with her to her car. It wasn't far to go she had told me.
"Are you cold, Therese?" I liked hearing her say my name, it confirmed my existence, she pronounced it perfectly like an unheard melody.
"No I am quite content thank you." The streetlights illuminated her fair hair and eyebrows, her grey eyes shone like boats at sea. We reached her car, she opened the door for me and walked to her side. We both got in and the leather seats bit at any warmth we held.
"I'm sure we'll warm up soon enough." Carol remarked turning on the car, the heaters rustling into motion. The radio was turned off, which was nice because the silence we shared was an eagerness for the other to speak, yet it wasn't awkward.
"Carol?" I said almost childishly, like a girl looking for her mother in a store trying to earn her way to the latest doll, a familiar sound at Frankenbergs.
"Yes Therese?" She, much like myself, wasn't keen on avoiding a topic of conversation with evasive small talk. I inhaled, mildly aware of what I would say, and turned my body towards hers as she drove. Her hands rested so lightly on the wheel, I remember tenderly how they looked and how they felt, how she knew perfectly where to place them and what pressure was required. I lost my words for a second, before reclaiming them.
"Do you remember, the first time I left your house? We shared a phone call afterwards?"
"How could I forget? I behaved awfully, I shouldn't have been so rude." Her head shook slightly, I didn't like seeing the regret painted on her face.
"Never mind that. On the phone I told you I was afraid of asking you things, or at least I didn't think you'd want to be asked."
"I encouraged you to do so. What do you want to ask me Therese?" Her tone was so subtly similar to when she told me she felt safe with me, it was stern and yet infinitely kind.
"You told me that I seek resolutions because I am young. I was wondering if it had occurred to you that-"
"I was the one seeking resolutions?"
"Yes, perhaps, maybe. There is just so much I want to know about you. I think that there are things you want to know about yourself." Carol kept her eyes on the road as she pulled to one side and parked with the engine still running. She turned to me.
"Therese. It was naive of me to not see what I did not know. I have only had two consistencies in life, Abby and my daughter. I had been with other women in the past, who floated by with affairs before they returned to their significant partner. Please understand that I love you like I have loved no one else, it's different. It was new, it still is. When Rindy - the thought of Rindy being taken from me..." She paused inhaling what felt like all of the air in the car. I brought my hand to her hair and tucked it behind revealing her face, which had slumped slightly. She brought her hand to mine and it felt like she could burrow her face deep into my palm. "I couldn't stand the feeling of not being with her. So I had to do something. But being with Harge, being someone else around my daughter - it's nothing like being myself around you. I was afraid that if I stayed and lost my daughter that one day I might lose you." A tear fell as small as a pin, a disruptive boulder.
"Carol, you don't need to justify yourself. I love you. I knew I would from the instant we met." Carol's lips moved slightly and my impulse to kiss them was strong, instead I leant forward and kissed her cheek. Lingering at the smell of her perfume, a comforting and alluring scent from which happy memories arose. She turned to me and brought her hand to the spot where my neck and shoulders joined. Her lips pressed against mine. Locking so sweetly as if it were the first. I remembered the rush, the eagerness, the impulse to see her body again, it was so beautiful after all. But not here, not right now. Even though the roads were quiet with few companions, we separated smiling. She held my face one more time, before thrusting the car forward. The streetlights flicked on her face like starlight, I could see her smile and I hoped that I was the one who caused it. She chuckled to herself slightly before whispering barely loud enough to hear.
"Flung out of space"
YOU ARE READING
Resolutions | Carol
Fanfiction(A fanfic sequel of the movie adaptation of Carol, staring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara) (Sexual Content) Carol had once chose Therese, from a crowd of many, all of the women she could have had she chose Therese. Time had passed and secrets had un...
