Bittersweet

Chapter Six - "It wasn't anything different?"

Early September, Sometime 3:00 p.m

He was still as strong as he was four years ago. She wondered if anything had actually changed about him like he'd promised.

He held her close to his chest with his arms tight around her body. She didn't miss this. His touch. The sound of his breathing.

His cheek rested on the top of her head. They never danced together, but just this once, Deene felt no need to worry about him hurting her.

He wasn't holding her roughly. He wasn't fuming. He wasn't threatening her. Not like he did in their last month together.

He was just there with her, sharing a comfortable space. A space where she could breathe.

There was a bowl of fruit on the table next to them. His favorite green grapes mixed with cubes of papaya.

She couldn't recognize the room they were in. The walls were a faded blue, and there were no windows.

"Do you know where we are?" she asked. Her voice didn't sound the same. She sounded... fragile. She sounded younger.

"Does it matter?" he asked.

There it was. The barely there bass in his voice that she once loved so much.

Thinking of how long it had been since she was last in his embrace, Deene felt a frown forming on her face.

When was the last time she had felt his touch? How long had it been? How did he find her?

"Does it matter?" he asked again, his hands sliding up her back when she suddenly felt pressure between their bodies.

His hand was at the back of her neck, pulling her away from him, but it wasn't him. She couldn't see his face even though she was directly in front of him in the fairly illuminated room.

"Does it matter?"

Beep, beep, beeeeeeeeep!

Jolting awake, Deene grasped her chest as a pain faded away from her back. In her groggy state, she looked down at the system in her car and saw that she left a poetry book playing on her stereo.

"Does it matter?"

Slamming her hand against the large button on the left, she shut it off and looked through her passenger window where an older man sat in his car looking at her with concern in his eyes.

"Are you alright?" he shouted. "You've been asleep the whole time I was shopping!"

Fuck. Deene thought to herself, wiping the line of sweat above her lip.

Opening her phone she saw the time followed by the multiple missed calls from the daycare. She was way past late to pick up Pluto.

Raising at hand to him as a thankful gesture, she started up her car and pulled out of the lot.

Nearly two hours. What the fuck?

She couldn't handle a single thought floating through her head. Fairly, she didn't know what she was thinking.

She didn't remember being so tired. She didn't even know how she fell asleep in the heat of her car to the point where it took someone honking to wake her.

It took everything in her not to step on the gas. She wanted to zoom through traffic at the speed of light to get to Pluto. To kiss her and apologize. To make up for being late somehow.

She made it in less than the normal twenty minutes, where she saw only two cars parked outside.

Shit, shit, shit. Oh my God. Deene panicked, running up to the building door. Pressing the buzzer, she looked around hoping to see someone walking Pluto out, or better yet, she hoped to hear Pluto laughing with someone.