“Music to lull is listened
And heart beats are heard
As time slowly passes”
The conversation went on and on until neither one could stay awake any longer. There was not going to be any resolution, any time soon. “Let’s just rest on this. I have waited a long time to just hold you again.” He was somewhat pleading and directing as he readied himself for bed. “Okay, I will sleep out here.” She said as she started to walk out of the room. As she entered the living room the “I can’t imagine love without you…” was heard coming out of the cd player’s speakers. She loved that song, and wanted so much to imagine that he felt that way about her. She knew at that moment she could not imagine much more beyond that moment, and knew that she wanted more than anything to just be right where she was, only, she really wanted time to reverse and go back to when they first met, or speed forward and have be bliss, or just ended. It was becoming excruciatingly painful!
He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back into his room. “No, I have waited long enough. I need you with me tonight.” She moved away to gain some semblance and just stuttered, and walked away from him as if to listen to the music a little more closely.
“Did he just say he wanted me with him? No, just for tonight, there is nothing permanent here. Remember, remember the premonition, that moment.” She reminded herself that this moment was just to reaffirm that it was over, to part as friends, to acknowledge that there was a special love that existed at one time. Her mind was back, back to Evergreen when he first came to her door. He pulled her close then, held her tight, she could smell him, a slight clean scent, not cologne, but just clean. The area at the base of his neck held a softness that lured her closer. The slightest chest hairs tickled her nose.
She wept when she first breathed him in. It was as if she had breathed him in a thousand years earlier. The same agony that pained her one thousand years before came rushing in at that moment. In an instant she knew he would flee, that this was just a spring romance and that the torment would come.
She breathed again, deeply this time, merely an attempt to suppress the thoughts, the pain, the tears. Not tonight, though, enough tears had already been shed. Her mind was clouded, confused, unwilling to face the truth in all that laid before her.
The music continued and had advanced to Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five.” He smiled at her across the room and approached her, lighting a cigarette, she sheepishly smiled back and reminded him that she was allergic to cigarette smoke, and that she thought he quit. He said, “I did, but started back up in February. I will go outside, but I really need one, and then I really need to fall asleep.”
When he came back in she was waiting on the couch, he signaled her to join him. They drifted off into a deep sleep, she heard him call her name, and pull her in tighter, squeezing her hand he sadly cried, “I love you, I love you.”
Tears drifted down her cheeks and onto the pillow like so many nights before, all that was heard was her heart beat.
