Seven Years

"You know," I begin, stirring my cocktail with a toothpick "it takes seven years for every cell in our body to be replaced." I lift up the toothpick with the olive skewered through it and tap in on the edge of the glass. "It takes twenty-seven days for us to shed our skin." I put the drink to my lips and down the rest of it.

"Two more years, and I will have a body you've never touched. Two more years and I won't know what it's like to have loved you. Two more years and I will be free of you, completely." I put my tongue out as a drag the olive across it taking in the remainder of alcohol before taking it off the toothpick completely. He watches my every move as if he's in a trace, right up until the bare toothpick is in its glass once again. I look him over one last time before turning to leave, it takes everything in me to walk away from this, from him.

"You want to forget this?" He asks huskily. He doesn't need an answer he knows. Sometimes I believe he knows me more then I know myself, he knows that I can't forget him, he knows that sometimes, can't is a won't. I stare at him with words unspoken.

"I don't want to," he says too quickly, like it just managed to slip past his lips, "and I won't let you."

I inhale sharply as his lips find mine and all I can think of is how he's sentenced me once again, another seven years.