Unspoken

Chapter Twenty: Ryan

My head has been spinning for the past seven hours. It pounds and it screams and there is no way other than this to get the pain to stop.

I have been twiddling my thumbs for the last two, my mind opaque with thoughts of her trembling lips crushing inwards as I press my neck against them, with the consuming image of her eyes slick with grayness, filling with tears that taste like rain and hellish fire.

I can't stop thinking about her scent and how it lingered in the room even as she ran out of it earlier today, the way she ran away from me because I treated her most vulnerable moment as nothing more than a passing glance.

My knuckles curl on the steering wheel, turning a ghostly white.

Her hurt was my downfall, and before I even tried to calm down, to tell myself she's nothing more than another girl who I had kissed, who I had tasted and wanted more, I was driving to clear my head.

My body is craving more and my mind is craving her's, her ideas, her thoughts, her words, all of them, I want them painted on my body forever. I'd get her secrets tattooed across my skin.

I found myself driving to Tina's, rushing into the shop, laced with sweat and urgency, and asking her where Aubrey lived so I could apologize. When she eventually gave me the address, she looked at me with worry clear in her old, fading eyes.

I could tell she thought it was a mistake, I could tell she hated the idea of giving any of her personal information out to a stranger like that, but she must also know that this is a small town. All I would have to do is go into the grocery store and ask the first person I saw.

Now that I turn onto the last street in her neighborhood, where all of the houses are a world away from one another, I can feel the anxiety start to creep up my neck. But that anxiety is paired with expectation, excitement for the moments to come where I get to see her sad eyes become even sadder in my presence.

Her house is at the end of the street, on the left, and I swing around in the large cul-de-sac at the very end to park right along her perfectly manicured lawn that stretches out larger than my entire trailer.

Her house looks to be a pale yellow color with a bright white trim and garage. The door is a burnt red, something that looks darker like a burgundy, and along with it is a large front porch with a swing fit for two people.

I stare at it for a moment, my eyes drifting up to see a line of large windows in the middle of the second floor, the lights a dim yellow color with candles drifting and swaying from the breeze. Almost immediately I know she's in there. I see the stack of books on the desk by the window, the lace curtains with intricate flower designs casting shadows around the room, the fresh roses sitting on the windowsill.

I must sit there for only a few moments, but it feels like days.

I shut off the car and emerge into the pouring rain pounding down on my head and shoulders with the same intensity as small hail. I run up the driveway, my steps echoing in my head as I climb the few stairs to the covered porch. It's only then that I hear the sweet melody of music coming faintly from the open window up there, the notes of a love song I undoubtedly have never heard. I can barely make it out through the sound of a fall rain, cold air nipping at the life of the forest, whispering to the leaves to drop, willing the grass to brown.

I smile in the dim porch light, in a few short moments, her voice will be like breeze through my wet and tangled hair, her scent will be hugging my insides until they spill.

I take a moment to memorize the design on the doorknob, the way the carvings swirl and combine with each other, the brassy gold color tainting my memories forever. Someday, all I will remember is the way I felt while I studied a girl's front door.