32 Rhys
32
Rhys
She smelled delicious. Cream cake or sweet caramel. I took a deep breath, resting my chin on her shoulder and my hands on her waist.
“You didn’t take off your coat,” I whispered.
She shook her head and started unbuttoning the big buttons on the front. I helped her. She turned into me. Her legs touched mine; our eyes looked for each other’s in the shadows. I held my breath as she ran her fingers through my hair and then down, drawing a soft line on my face, my lips, my chin.
“Why can’t we…?” she asked softly.
“Ginger…don’t make this harder than it is.”
“We’d have the memory to hold on to.”
“Memories are much more than they seem.”
“It doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s just you and me. For a night.”
“Come here, Ginger.” I sighed, sat back, and pulled her onto my lap. I stretched my feet out until they touched the other side of the windowsill. We sat there like that for hours, just watching the snow, letting time slip past. Sometimes our lips joined. Sometimes we listened to each other’s breathing. Sometimes I wanted so bad to say to hell with it and take off all her clothes that my fingers trembled as I ran them across the hem of her shirt, and the temptation grew stronger and her kisses more intense until it almost hurt to look at her.
“What if we never see each other again, Rhys?”
“What do you mean?” I stretched out a bit.
“What if we don’t see each other for years and years? What if you have a girlfriend, kids? What if I’ve met someone and gotten married? What if…?”
“Ginger…” I sighed.
“Don’t look at me like that. Answer me.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Won’t you regret not doing more tonight? Not knowing what it might be like for us to be together? Not letting something happen when you know you want it…?”
“Dammit…” I stood up and walked to the other end of the small room. “Of course I’ll regret it. I already regret it now.”
Still by the window, she listened as I continued. “This is just how it has to be. I’d be happy if you wrote me in a few years and told me you were going to marry someone and they were going to make you happy. I want you to be happy.”
I leaned against the wall and slid downward until I was resting on the gray carpet. We just stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. She was scowling, angry, unable to understand my words, my way of loving her. She was moving her foot rhythmically. Her hands were folded in her lap.
“I don’t know if I would be happy if you had a girlfriend…”
She said it so low, so softly…that it made me laugh. At that, and at her, for how visceral it was, because she didn’t care if it was wrong; she was ready to confess her fears aloud. To me, at least. And that made it even more special, knowing she was letting me see her that way, letting me see through her…
“I wouldn’t hold it against you. But you shouldn’t worry about that…”
“Why? Because you don’t believe in love? Because it scares you?”
“It doesn’t scare me. It’s not that. I do believe in it. Sometimes.”
“You can’t believe in something sometimes. Either you do or you don’t.”
I stroked my jaw, took a deep breath, and tried to be honest with her for once—for a night—because Ginger was willing to be honest with me.
“What I believe in is moments. I believe you can fall in love many times in your life, with the same person, with different ones, with yourself, or just with a period of time.”
She looked out the window.
“I don’t know if I could invite you to my wedding,” she said.
I laughed. Ginger did too.
And I got up and walked toward her again. It was still snowing, but the outline of the moon was visible, just barely, in the midst of the darkness, a slender, waning sickle.
“I see it too,” she said, guessing at my thoughts.
“Us on the moon,” I whispered.
I don’t know how much time passed before she fell asleep with her head resting on my chest. I watched her in silence, memorizing the lines on her face and convincing myself that I preferred to regret all those what-ifs over the risk that I might lose her forever. I thought of Paris; even there I had asked myself what would have happened if I’d dared to kiss her in the airport. Where it would have led to if we’d tugged on that thread, if we could have woven something new or only pulled what was already there apart. I thought about the detours we take and those we leave behind because we’re too scared of where we might end up.
She murmured something incomprehensible when I picked her up and laid her in bed. I lay beside her and took her hand. I searched for her pulse, the constant rhythm of the song that accompanied me as I closed my eyes.