Page 144 of These Tears

The taste turns salty. Slightly bitter.

Before my mind can make sense of it, my thoughts collide, my body explodes, and I go… utterly… still.

‘Swallow it,’ he rumbles beside me.

As if my demon has finally risen to meet his, I let the taste of him slide down my throat.

Once. Twice.

The flavour of the jam has long faded.

Only the taste of him is left.

He doesn’t move away until it’s all gone.

And then he releases me.

I feel his eyes burning into my side.

I don’t know what’s happening now. Don’t understand what follows.

The heat takes my cheeks, takes my chest, takes me whole.

And he waits. Watches it happen.

Then stands.

He walks away from me without a word, trailing the scent of musk and regret.

I turn my chin just enough to see him heading for the door.

Three different locks slide and click-thunk.

Only the wind keeps me company.

That, and the growing frost in my chest that no amount of fleece or fire can thaw away.

It’s not the absence that stings.

It’s the way the walls keep handing me back the silence, as if he has left me to carry everything that happened between us. All on my own.

It’s about midnight when I decide to stop trying to fall asleep.

Glancing sideways, I find his side of the bed empty.

I get up, throwing a few more logs into the fire to keep it burning longer into the night. The quiet is almost eerie.

The house smells of woodsmoke and detergent from scrubbing at the chicken-shit stains until my knuckles threatened to split. I made pancakes I had no appetite for – because stopping would mean letting my skin remember where his fingers have been.

But as I approach the table, the meal still sits there beneath the aluminium foil, cold and soft with trapped condensation.

Curiosity gets the better of me.

I walk quietly to the door at the back of the house.

There’s no sound from the other end. I lean in, rest my ear against the wood.

Silence.