The ride to the hotel was an hour and a half long. I was weeping silently for the first part I'm sure. You sat there trying to make me laugh. But the moment we had gotten into the back seat of the car, we had let go of our hands. I could see your fingers slightly fidgeting from your much too outstretched arms, aching to hold mine. But my hands were my own, for tonight. I am now staring through the window through make-up that burns my eyes but for the love of God won't smudge even if I cry an ocean. I count the number of red lights I see on crawling cars as the red and gold of my wedding dress glistens under occasional tunnel lights. I steal a glance at you and you're staring out your own side with your palm under your chin but your fingers, they're still stretched out far towards me. Not until the honeymoon, we had decided. Take as much time as we like, we had agreed. Yet, after a month of being legally married, today is the actual day you take me with you as your bride, and I can see that you want something so bad.
We're finally here. You sprint to my side of the car and open the door for me. I carry the crushing weight of the red-gold gown with the tips of my fingers like balancing a feather on my pinkie, and I watch you watch me once again like I'm the princess in a fairy tale. We make our way up through the hotel. Another decision we agreed on to not make it traditional by spending our first days at your home. We leave in three hours to catch a flight to a country you've picked to surprise me with. As the two of us glide up in an elevator all alone, I can feel you breathing faster as my elbow stands merely an inch from your chest. What is only seventeen floors, feels like a hundred.
As we walk down this endless corridor, past suites named after flowers and jewels, our steps have become smaller, our strides shorter and it has become more and more uncertain who's leading whom. You stop near a redwood door with a golden plaque. "Kindling Hearts Suite", it reads. You hold out the door for me, inviting me into our room. Draped with scarlet and laced with gold, every corner of the room matches every detail on my dress perfectly.
You close the door. And I feel my heart drop to the floor. I turn around and you are walking towards me. Slowly. Ever so slowly... But you stop at an arm's length. Our stuff has already been brought here in the morning. We look into each other's eyes and share that same usual look of agreement. We run through it like clockwork. You retire to one side beside the bed and I to the other. In the silence of an hour past midnight, the scuffles of you lifting your shirt over your head and me, shimmying out of my wedding dress echo in the solitude of our room as we disrobe without looking at each other. So you were true to your word after all. Not until the honeymoon. Take as much time as we need. Yet, I can see you want something so bad. I'm wearing juniper jeans and a baggy, avocado-green full sleeved shirt with a similar colored scarf over my head. I turn around to see you in plain blue pants, pulling a deep blue V-neck full sleeved shirt down your bare back. I quickly turn back and start slipping on my shoes. You are now dressed.
We start to gather our bags in place; a backpack and three suitcases is all it is. We go over the things we need again and again. Tickets, passports, mobile phones... And we keep glancing at the rose petals on our bed that haven't been moved an inch, the scented candles beside our bed that we will have to put out before we leave. And we keep glancing at each other, the curve of our necks, the biting of our lips. Not until the honeymoon. Take as much time as we need. Yet, I can see you want something so bad.
Our cab is here. It's time. You pick up the two big suitcases, the ones we'll be leaving behind at home on our way to the airport and I pick up the backpack and the small one right there. Your fingers brushed mine as you bent to hand it over to me. My hand immediately bounced back but what's that? Your hand almost seemed to want to hold mine. Your fingers, they're fidgeting again.
We round our bags and start walking towards the door, you behind me. As I put one foot after the other, I think about you. The way you held my hand when we got into car, the way your fingers ached to hold them again once you let go. The way you tried to make me smile as I sniffed through tears, the way you smiled at yourself when I finally did. The way you looked at me when you saw me stand in length in my wedding dress, the way you kept hesitating to keep your distance from me in the elevator. The way you couldn't breathe when I was inches away from you, the way you wished you could sweep me off my feet the second we were alone. The way your heart broke when I proposed we still needed time one month ago. The way you said yes if that was what made me happy. In those seven steps that took to get to the door, I've thought about a million moments with you. My heart is racing and I feel lightheaded. I'm breathing faster. I've unlocked the door. You're right behind me. My hands can't feel anything. I've stopped in between the open door. I'm panting now. It's audible. You can see the rise and fall of my shoulders. Am I okay, you ask. And that's it.
It is in a moment that lasts shorter than a second that I close the door again and drop my bags to the floor and turn around and your face melts away the thumping of heart and the breathlessness in my body into a slow............. playful............. pulsation............. as I sink my lips into your cheek for a little longer than a second, but what somehow feels like an eternity, as I hear the thump of two suit cases falling to the ground.
I turn back as quickly as I turned around and pick up the backpack and the suitcase with a haunting hollowness growing in my chest as I open the door again and move forward, only to pause in between the doorway. With my hand over that empty void I feel in my heart, I close my eyes and relive the feeling of standing on the tips of my toes and my hand cupping your face, and my fingers through your hair and your skin touching my lips. But what is this emptiness? This cold I feel like I'm drowning in a frozen lake?
I hear scuffles behind me, the tip-tap of your footsteps. I feel something on my waist, and a gentle weight on my shoulder, and a breath on my neck. And then, for the teeniest, tiniest fraction of a millionth of a second, I feel your lips on my cheek.
"Thank you," you whisper.
Suddenly, I think I feel warmer than ever.
