Chapter 1
I could feel her breath on my collarbone. Her mouth hung slightly open, her nude lips opening like a flower absorbing the morning sun after a night of rain. My breath caught in my throat. If I touched her and brought her from her inner world, I would be a sinner. Sometimes I wonder what she is dreaming about. Me? Absolutely not. 'Don't put yourself through this, Kyran. You know she's dreaming about him'. And she was, she had no idea I lay a few inches from her body and that with every muscle in my body, every tendon, I restrained myself back from touching her skin. Her lips. Her cheek. I wanted with everything I had to my name to have her head on my shoulder, her lips against mine. We were so close but untouching. It could never be that way and I knew it. The mattress lay on the floor. A few blankets and a thick comforter covered our bodies. The clock behind her read 7:00. My apartment was a small but fair one room shack with a bathroom and tiny, non-existent kitchen in downtown Manhattan. The majority of the walls were windows that looked over trees that were stunning during autumn. I sat up and wiped my eyes, still weary from the night before. I looked over to make sure I hadn't woken her up but there she slept, unmoved by the world where I was, eons away from where she was, where I wanted to be. I got up and walked over to the corner that houses my tea and coffee necessities. I have a small table that holds my laptop and a plug-in water heater along with sugar and assorted flavors of tea and coffee. I got a clean cup out of one of the rare, small cupboards over the sink that was my 'kitchen'. I made some vanilla almond tea and sat in the wooden chair at the table. I looked over while sipping my tea and she was unmoved from where she had been the entire morning. Her long dark hair was laid out around her and her bare shoulders and arms where the only thing uncovered by the blankets. I could hear her soft breathing, an angelic melody from where I was sitting. I sat my tea down and got up. I had on a button down old shirt that was my brothers. It came down a little passed my waist. I climbed back into the spot where I laid my head softly on the pillow. I stared at her, more than I always do. Her skin was a fair ivory that made the even the preacher gasp that lived down the hall. She had naturally long eyelashes that caressed her bright green eyes. Her hair was a dark coal tone that made her seem majestic, almost unreal. She opened her eyes at that point. Staring at me as to say 'Hey'. And then came her smile. The most beautiful image that has been imprinted in my mind for as long as I'd known her. Her smile stretched across her face and her eyes squinted. She mouthed the word, "Good morning" before sitting up. Her hair fell around her face, messy and wavy. She rubbed her eyes and looked down at me. She kept a thin blanket around her as she seemingly floated to the bathroom. I watched the door waiting for her to come back. She opened the door, now clothed in a Rolling Stones t-shirt. Breathless, I watch her as she walks over to my little table and sips on my tea.
"You know, you really need a new apartment or at least some new furniture," she looked over at me with a smile playing on her lips. I knew she was joking. She loves it here. The noiseless neighbors, the view especially. This apartment is where she does a majority of her sketching.
"Sketch me a nice design and I'll buy it all, everything." I watch her as she eyes her sketchbook and looks back at me, wondering if I'm being serious. She grabs her sketchbook, leather bound charcoal black, and sits in a chair facing the windows. This is what she does every time she comes over. She gets quiet and unreachable while her hand glides over the sketchbook. I watch her, with every second that passes she becomes more radiant than the last.
About a half hour later, she looks over at me and smiles. "Finished." she gets up and bounces over to the bed. She sits on the edge of the mattress, long legs sprawled on the wood floor. I grab the book from her and feast my eyes on one of the most beautiful things I have ever witnessed her draw. The room was sketched from the point of view of the wall opposite the windows. Straight ahead were the windows that stretched from floor to ceiling with tall curtains to cover the windows, while twinkle lights ran around the ceiling. There were bookshelves that lined the remaining walls where there was open space to hold all of the books that now occupied an abundant amount of the floor. The table that now houses my laptop and water heater is in the same place but has a mirror on it that had intricate designs around it. "This is beautiful Laura, really." I look up at her, not daring to hide the sincerity and the happiness I knew bounded from my eyes and smile.
Laura got up and spun around. "I will help you with the stuff, we can go shopping. When is your next day off work?" Her eyes bore into mine. "Um, Saturday." I told her, stumbling a bit because I couldn't remember what day it was. "Ok, I will cancel all plans that I probably won't have and look for some stores that could potentially have what we are looking for." She smiled and went over to the window. While she was gazing, her smile started to falter and then vanished completely. I knew what she was thinking of. "You can stay here for as long as you want, you know." I tried to comfort her. "I know." she was still distant, not trying very hard to escape her dark thoughts. She lives in upper Manhattan with her boyfriend of 2 years. He's a lawyer and works so much I'm surprised he still remembers that Laura is at home, waiting. She loves him and I'm not so sure he loves her back. Their honeymoon phase is over, it was over a week after they started dating but they stayed together. I never spoke badly of her relationship, even when she comes over in the middle of the night sobbing because her and Nick got in a fight again. I try to console her and be there for her but I can't when all I want is her.
Seeing her cry rips my heart out of my chest, but seeing her cry makes me angry. Not for the reason that Nick disrespects her and ignores her wants, but that it makes her human, less of an angel.
I got up and strode over to where she was. "What are you looking at?" I stand next to her, centimeters from touching. Is there electricity between us? No, it's just my imagining. "That woman running." I look down and laugh because the woman is running ridiculously. It's spring but she wears spandex shorts and a tank top showing her obviously engineered chest, running with both feet kicking so high they hit her butt. Laura stops laughing and time slows down. I promise to keep this memory in my mind until the day I die.
We always found something to laugh at. She was funny in the cute, sarcastic way. She could always make me smile, and I praised her for that. "Laura, I have to leave soon," I say looking at her to await a meager "Please don't" or "Stay with me", but instead she said, "Alright, I guess I should go back to Nick's." Laura glided over to her things. She only brought her purse and extra shoes from the night before. She grabbed them and walked over to me, kissing my cheek and then vanished through the door smiling quickly before she pulled the door shut.
I stood staring at the door for a while. Feeling the kiss resonate on my cheek, still burning from when her lips first touched my skin. I knew I was over thinking things, playing too far into my feelings but that made me happy, right?
I walked over to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Steam soon filled the bathroom, so I unbuttoned my brothers shirt and shimmied out of my underwear. Before I got in the shower I looked at myself in the mirror. The full mirror was on the back of the bathroom door. When you walked in, the shower was on the left and the sink on the right. A majority of the lighting was filtered from the skylight above. The lighting made my skin appear more pale than I remember ever having been. I looked at my naked body and then at my face. I have long brown hair with blonde on the ends, my hair is messy and tangled most of the time. My eyes are a dull green-blue, not much to look at. A sudden pang of realization hits me when I think--again--how Laura will never like me. No one could love someone like me whose messy mental stability shines through to her messy appearance.
I jump in the shower before I can think any more. I have my back against the water and lean my head back and let the water touch my body where no ones hands have ever been. I've never been felt, caressed, held by the person I wanted. Sure, I've felt loved by my family, but I haven't felt loved by Laura. She was beautiful, and I was awkward. She liked guys, and I liked her. She could smile and make the saddest person feel hope. I was over thinking things. I got out of the shower and buttoned up my brother's old shirt. I grabbed a pair of boot cut jeans and slid them on and slid on my flip flops. I ran a brush through my hair and brushed my teeth, ignoring the mirror.
Chapter 2
I knew I was late when I walked in front of the cafe to see my boss glaring at me through the glass windows. I tried to avoid her glare by looking at my shoes until I got to the door. I opened the door and there she was. Melanie, my boss. She was looking at me with her peircing brown eyes. It hits me that in another life she could be attractive. A life where she wasn't such a bitch and could relax and have a good time.
