Resolutions | Carol

Space

I felt like she could ask me anything, my total submission could be hers if she so desired. As the car slowed my pulse heightened. It was like I could feel my eyes dilating, as if her mere existence enhanced my senses. It was almost primal, like she was designed for my destruction. Her smell, her beauty and elegance, truly overwhelming. It took one glance at her and it felt like all of the oxygen in the room had left. Love me, I thought. I love you, I wanted to say it a thousand times over until the term grew tiresome yet never outdated. I wondered how someone could develop a boredom with her, like Harge I suppose. He must have become unsatisfied with waking beside her. But how? If I ever had the chance to ever.

"I'll walk you inside." Carol's head turned to me at the offer. I declined out of sheer habit, but I wanted her to walk with me. I wanted to walk and walk, like we had in the first months of our meeting. I wished we could run away; running, running and never running out. "Please, I insist." She placed her hand on my knee and squeezed it once. I sighed a smile, in fact it may have been an entire lifetime of happiness I just exhaled.

"Thank you." I thought it would sound weaker, but my voice was purely appreciative.

"It is my pleasure." I liked watching her rouge painted lips grow, grinning from the creases by her eyes. I wanted to talk to her about attraction, how I found it strange that she is attracted to me. I wanted to talk to her about getting old and how it scared me to do so. I feared the inevitability of it all. When memories fade, and love dies. But I couldn't say any of that, ad my thoughts restricted my throat into a tightened noose.  "So, shall we?" I felt distant from her at this moment and yet we were so close. We emerged from the car simultaneously, closing the doors behind us. She let me lead the way to my front door, but she has seen it may a time. I got to the door and I couldn't help myself but to ask,

"Will you stay? I don't like the idea of you driving into the night to get home."

"If you don't mind. Only, my home is yet to become one, I haven't settled in and I don't have all of my things packed yet."

"It is no problem at all."

We exchange mutual smiles and I turn to face the door. When I finally reached the lock, I felt her fingers slip into my hand; intertwined and totally embedded. I look at her, but her eyes stay focused on our hands. When she finally looked up it were like seeing a lifelong friend, or being awakened from a trance, she looked at me so tenderly with such comfort that I lost all sense of reality. I listened for potential footsteps of my landlady or a car pulling up, at which point she would inescapably let my hand free to fall into the abyss. But nobody came and our hands remained in contact. If I could, I mean if I were brave enough, I would take her right then and there. My hands were shaking, the key acted as if it had never recognised the lock or myself. Somewhat understandable. Carol slid her hand up my back, across my shoulder, under my arm to reach the hand supporting the key. She guided my hand to the lock, steady and slow as if she were teaching me how to prepare to throw a dart. I could feel her breath on my neck, subtly warm and forever affectionate. I unlocked the door and entered first, she followed me into my kitchenette. Carol draped her coat over a wooden chair that sat tucked beneath the table; upon which was a box of photographs. She looked at all of them, occasionally bringing one to the light to further examine. "You have been busy." Carol had a small ring of guild in her voice, it was as if she were to continue to say so this is what good comes of being free of me. But it hadn't been good, it had been a distraction.

"The smaller strips are samples for The Times."

"They are quite beautiful." Her remark should have been filled with pride but instead it was a sound of regret. "How I wished I could have been there when they were taken." She picked up the next photo which was a larger one. "You kept this? For all this time?" I knew which photo it was without looking at it. As if it were practically entrenched into my brain.  It was her, lying covered in merely a bed sheet. Her head were tilted against the pillow, her lips were two pilgrims and her neck perfectly outlined by the cascading shadows. "Why?" The truth is, even if I had the desire to discard them I couldn't. Because she was an artform, perfectly framed by her hair and her nails which were a consistent shade of red, never fading or aging. Because I wanted to be reminded that our nights spent together were real, not just a whisper of a dream taken by the morning air. Because I love you, that is why. But I didn't say that, I couldn't say it.