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Halfway through, he lowered the camera he held between us like a shield, and simply watched. Sadness rippled off him in waves, and I did my damnedest to gather it up and hold it for him.
Until I could hold him.
Something had broken him.
Someone.
The music ended, declaring my belief in him.
In the possibility of us.
Stopping a mere two feet in front of him, my breath coming in pants, I searched his face.
Deep, black pools reflected my yearning back to me.
He snapped our connection and lowered his gaze to the floor. His broad shoulders rose and fell with his deep breath before he lifted his chin and looked at me. Stepping forward, his long legs ate up the space between us, bringing his chest within a hair’s breadth of mine.
His voice, tight and pitched low, hit me. “You’re wrong, you know. There is no light in me.”
He dipped his head.
I tipped back my chin to meet his eyes, to protest, but my eyelids fluttered shut, unable to bear the weight of sadness in his eyes.
Dragging his nose down the length of mine, he feathered his beautiful lips across my cheek.
My mind cleared of all but him.
Never had a touch been sweeter.
Briefly, gently, he pressed his scruffy face against the smoothness of mine, and a single word, raggedly whispered, tore me apart.
“Otherwise.”
Better This Way
Ares
“Melissa? I’m home,” I called out.
The familiar smell of home wrapped around me. Beef stew and apple pie were one of three meals Melissa knew how to cook. A brief flash of memory of my grandparents’ house, the garlic and lemon and oregano of my grandmother’s cooking, assailed me. How different might my house smell if my mother had survived my birth?
I tried and failed to recall the specific smells of my childhood home.
I wondered if I went back to that house, would I recognize it?
Would I feel it?
Did they even live there still?
Light footsteps alerted me. Melissa met me in the front hall, a tea towel dangling from her hands.
Welcome warmed her face. “How did it go?”
I shrugged. “It went. I’m happy to be home. How’s the baby?”
Melissa smiled widely and rolled her big, brown eyes. “Perfect! How could she be anything but?”
Her answer loosened the knot of anxiety in my chest as I walked toward her. “Is she asleep?”
