♇

you can't decide if you're going to love or hate (mostly love) that nothing escapes Ryland when it comes to your proclivities.

one time, he gathers your hands above your head to keep you from thrashing and he doesn't miss the way you immediately grow pliant in his grasp. you both try to mask your satisfaction, but both of you are well-aware that your manicured attempts at feigning ignorance isn't doing shit. Ryland makes a mental note to find some good rope for you next time.

or maybe he tries putting his hand around your neck while he's fucking you. he's got your back pressed up to his chest; one hand rubbing your clit while he's snapping his hips into yours from behind, and his unoccupied hand slinks up your torso before resting right around that section where he knows is where he should tighten. you can't hide from him even in this position (unless, perhaps, he's got a mirror in the room/space where he's railing you), because you're clenching on his cock every time he squeezes the column of your throat.

Loneliness, at least in Japanese, could be written in two ways and it would still be pronounced similarly.

Sabishisa was the common reading. The difference lay in the characters used. "寂しさ" was the usual spelling, and the other, "淋しさ". They both meant the same thing: loneliness, desolation; forlorn or melancholy. "The fact or condition of being alone", if you were to go by the wise words of your dictionary.

The old thing, which had been sitting in a box inside your home in Wisconsin, was from your mother. She bought it when she was still a young woman, fresh out of college, before eventually lugging it along when she married your father. There, on a designated bureau in her study the dictionary sat; always within her reach, always a companion that satisfied her desire to learn.

You unearthed the dictionary from its box after you came back from New York. Layers of twenty-plus years of dust reduced you into a coughing mess like the greeting of a long lost friend, and that's not the only unintentional offense that it dealt upon you. Its pages detached from the spine when you attempted to check its integrity. They came crashing down in small and big chunks, like an avalanche of paper and old memories. The worn-out glue, bless its heart, could no longer render its services to you. You mulled over what you should do about it. Store it away? Ignore it? You frowned. The thought of leaving it to waste away hurt too much.

You didn't dare bury that relic back in its enclosure. You put the sections back into order, alphabetically arranged like before; you dusted it carefully, gingerly; until no speck besmirched your palm and fingertips when you delivered a measured swipe over the edges. Only then did you returned its weary body on the now-polished bureau, which was another of your mother's possessions. All of this was done out of the belief that even when the bones of the dictionary were no longer attached to its spine, they stood to serve the same purpose. They were still whole. Still useful.

You reminisced about the years gone by, specifically the times when you relied heavily on this dictionary. You used it when writing your essays in school; and whenever you encountered a new word in a book that you're reading. The second circumstance was the most prevalent reason.

You loved to read. You were sure that you inherited it from your mother, because she too had a voracious appetite for knowledge, evidenced by the extensive collection displayed in the library slash family room, where she read to you when you were a child.

She was no longer surprised to find out that her most beloved pastime rubbed off on you, when you picked up your first book at five years old — Hansel and Gretel — and began reading the words as if you had learned them already in a past life. Children were sponges like that. They modeled the behaviors of their closest caregivers, and more often than not, carried those well into their later years.

You, being quite the zealous academic of the family, took it to the extreme and developed an obsession. The time you spent indoors was dedicated to burying your nose in a book. You read anything and everything: storybooks, textbooks; the home-making magazines that your mother kept in a pile in the living room, and all the novels that she bought you every year on your birthday.

Come high school, your knack for reading enabled you to breeze through Austen, the Brontes, and even Dickens. You never struggled in your literature courses, and your skills in comprehension even supplemented your performance in your other classes. In eighth grade, you joined a book club to meet more like-minded people. You were even club president once.

Your time in university didn't lend much leeway for you to devour novel after novel, however. College was a whole other landscape. You weren't anymore cushioned from the realities of the world, and life, you found, was devoid of the ease that your parents allowed you to have to adjust to its whims. The world was no longer wrapped around you, and you couldn't rely anymore on the consistent arrival of all the good things that built your first formative years.

How dearly you missed the days when your adolescent, overachiever brain could go through five books per month, all while attending classes that began at seven-thirty AM, maintaining an impeccable academic performance, and actively participating in your extra-curricular activities.

That time had passed. You had put that part of you to rest, complete with mental waterworks and a bereavement period of just about a week. You were a college student. Your allotted time for mourning was a measly five minutes, and after that, you had to start working again.

The Big Shift happened to your other habits and inclinations too. You were now horrified at the thought of having to wake up for an eight AM class. Nine was pushing it. The caffeine dependency emerged (from which you're still recovering); your solid sleep schedule, derailed; you didn't join any student groups, either. You were simply focused on getting good grades.

You considered it to be a miracle to have gotten into this specific university, because against almost a hundred-thousand, you emerged victorious. There was no way you were going to squander your chances of preserving your place in the fray. You were going to sacrifice your blood, sweat, and tears to prove that you were worthy of your slot, even if it meant forgoing an integral part of your college experience.

Your undergrad years, if you were to employ a piece of classical music to embody its soul, was a dramatic, emotionally charged rendition of Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King: a fitting leitmotif for a slow descent into madness; an intermingling of fury and misery that followed you like a shadow 'til present-day.

Every week you were bombarded with papers to write. Never did you run out of exams to study for and deadlines to meet — which, for some reason, were always scheduled to coincide with one another.

Once, when you were a freshman, you had three big group projects due on a single Tuesday. You also had a final exam later that day in an elective history course. A literal glimpse of hell on earth, if you were ever asked to describe that incident.

You knew that your professors didn't mean to do that on purpose; the stacking of deadlines, that is — they couldn't possibly be ganging up on you in secret — but on your worst days, that was what your exhausted mind would resort to when you attempted to craft a reason to explain such a period of suffering.

It would have been easier if they just told you upfront that you didn't deserve to rest. You would have reacted to that more favorably, with an indignant double thumbs up to match before you slumped on your desk to continue toiling. You ate, breathed, and lived in your notes and textbooks.

Apart from the brutal and heavy academic work that battered your brain, your well-being also took significant blows from the rose-tinted college social life that proved to be just a phase in the end.

You grew close with a few students at your dormitory in your junior year, after a dry spell of almost two years of your books being your only companions. You learned about the lives of these people and their hearts behind the curtains of academia, and they, yours. You even considered them your siblings at some point. You took care of one another like you were bound by blood. That was what you wanted to believe, and for a while, the faith that you invested in your friendship was honored and reciprocated.

But even the most devoted believer can have their faith tested and slashed by their own god, like lightning ripping through the trunk of an indestructible tree, forever scarring it and damning it to never bear any foliage again, so long as it stood above ground. Being cut down would have been better.

The pristine tabernacle, within which you stored your trust for these people, began forming fissures along its facade. You didn't see them at first. You thought that everything was fine, that you had nothing to worry about, because whatever problem you encountered, all of you would make an effort to mend and address it.

Only, these cracks proved to be too deep; too embedded in the structure for them to ever be isolated from the parts that were yet to face harm.

Jealousy, oh, that fiend.

You're briefed by M— about the problem that took root a few weeks ago, while you were unpacking your luggage. You had just come back after winter break; you weren't at all expecting to be on the receiving end of this; to be confronted with a dilemma, much less one with a romantic nature.

M—, who had feelings for I—, was suspecting J— of "stealing" him away from her. So M— cleaved to L—, in an attempt to make the other jealous. The story was mentally nauseating. Inter-friend group romance never ended well. You knew this because the same thing broke your high school friend group apart, and your expectations for how this recent one was going to turn out hardly differed from that of a few years ago.

Recalling the trigger that set off the literal Series of Unfortunate Events only made your head hurt. It was stupid. Puerile. Jejune. The synonyms just kept on coming. You were university students, for goodness' sake, yet no one wanted to own up and swallow their pride. You weren't supposed to be acting like this, and yet here you all were.

You were a Violet without a Klaus and a Sunny to help you devise a plan to worm your way out of Count Olaf's schemes. Try as you might to merge the broken pieces back together, your efforts turned out to be futile. All you were left with were bloodied hands; gushing red with the vital fluid by which you thought you and your friends were eternally bound. You were losing pints of it by the second, and you didn't know how to replace what you were starting to lack.

This tragic conflict cursed and poisoned your circle. You realized, after the dust settled, that this was incited by the insensitive and irresponsible nature of one guy — L—, whose name you lambasted from hell and back to this day. He couldn't apologize for shit, and when he did apologize (begrudgingly at that), he sounded more like he was pinning all the blame onto J—, the girl he used to like in your group.

A lesson from your high school swimming class echoed in your mind: a drowning person will drag down whatever his hand latched onto. You could only shake your head. Your mother's dictionary had more spine than that wimp of a man.

This unfortunate screw-up ultimately led the original twelve to drop to a population of eight. Another problem came your way some time during senior year, and then you became six. You all took another hit after that. This one hurt a lot, because you were caught in the crossfire between two of your closest friends. You're down to three.

And when you graduated — one.

———

You got a position at a bookstore in the city while you were doing your master's degree to gain some experience, just before you actually tread the career path that you wanted to take. The job paid as well as it could a fresh graduate like you at the time. Your boss and coworkers were nice, at least, and you didn't feel like you were slaving away your days in that bookstore.

The only downside was the lack of time to make any deep and meaningful connections. Making long-term friendships in a concrete jungle like New York was difficult, much less a romantic partner. All of your connections were shallow; none was good enough to compare to the bonds that you made in university; the ones that you failed to save, and had been yearning for ever since. It's as if they left a sizeable hole in your chest that could never be filled by what life had to offer you now that you were a working grad student.

That was the sobering truth of adulthood. It's bleak, tedious, and cold. Everyone was simply too tired to care. No one wanted to slow down, because if they did, the demands of their lives would run them over, like a hapless, insensitive motorist committing a hit-and-run on a dimly lit road.

The next hurdle that you needed to overcome, apart from this increasing sense of isolation, was your parents' deteriorating health. They retired and moved back to Wisconsin some time before you finished college, and you'd been left to fend for yourself, with just their support from afar keeping you afloat in a city that you had to call home.

You were ready to drop everything so you could take care of them when the news of their diagnoses came your way, but they didn't let you. Your father was the most steadfast in his insistence that you stay in New York to finish your degree. He knew how much you wanted this; you'd practically been dreaming, since your toddler years, of becoming a librarian — a job where you're surrounded by books — and he wasn't going to be the ball that's chained to your ankle and impede you from accomplishing and realizing that dream.

Against your roaring counter arguments, you stayed. You persevered through the brunt of juggling your academics and your job, and the growing weight of your separation from your family, whose state you had no way of monitoring save for the occasional phone call that lasted for a mere couple of minutes.

You received the dreaded correspondence one day after a tiring eight hours of work that your father was dying. Every ounce of blood in your body seemed to have been drained when you opened the text message from your aunt, and for a moment you couldn't think. You clearly remember just sitting at the edge of your bed in your small apartment and staring at the wall for a good few moments before springing to action.

You filed for an LOA and used up your saved vacation days at work to fly back to Wisconsin. They couldn't possibly stop you from visiting now, especially since the situation had turned too dire to ignore. You could set aside your timeline temporarily and be the daughter of your parents; a daughter who was prepared to give up what you had if it meant that they would survive this year.

But the universe let you down one more time. Your father was the first to succumb to his ailing heart, and then in a few days, your mother followed. Her extreme grief was likely the cause of her immediate departure and consequent reunion with her husband in the afterlife.

Life gave you two options then: persist in loneliness in a city where you had no ties, or replant your roots in your hometown, which was more familiar, but where you had to live on your own in the same house where your parents died.

You chose the latter as soon as you got your degree. No one came to your ceremony. You packed what little belongings you had when you returned to your apartment, hired some movers, and went on that booked flight back to your hometown.

———

Wisconsin had, for the most part, no familiar faces to greet you, at least not the ones you had once been acquainted with.

You no longer had any contact with your high school friends — most of them had moved out, and the those who stayed, you weren't so close with — and it was only once in a blue moon that you'd get an email from J—, too, one of the original twelve who stood by you during your last days as college seniors. You looked forward to reading her updates about her life and replying to her about your own.

Not that you had anything interesting to say, though. Your life revolved around working, eating, and sleeping. Rinse and repeat.

The local library welcomed you with open arms when you sent in your application form a week before your move. Steph, your supervisor and the very woman who interviewed you, even knew you by your last name.

She hired you exactly because she believed that you were dedicated to master the trade, and she wasn't wrong. You passed the training with the highest marks. You were meant for this; you'd always tell yourself that in the past, when you were still a student, and now, you finally cleared the last lap.

You wished that your parents would have lived a little longer to witness this moment. Instead, you had to go to the cemetery as soon as you got the confirmation that you were officially an employee at the library; clutching a bouquet that you bought at a flower shop.

They were not for you to celebrate your win, though. You stood over the gravestones of your mother and father, told them of your achievement, thanked them for everything, and set the flowers down. You drove home before the rain began pouring.

Bereft of any close companionship in your early adulthood, you turned to and sought comfort in a habit of yours from your youth. You decided to start reading books again, for you were working in their abode, and you had just finished finally cleaning your mother's humble library in the second floor. The project took a whole week of vacuuming, dusting, and lots and lots of moving, but you got the job done.

Now you had to put the room into good use.

You commenced your endeavor to reintroduce yourself with your forgotten pastime upon a memory from high school. Your club adviser recommended you Natsume Sōseki's Kokoro after seeing you read I Am Cat one afternoon, after a discussion on a few chapters of Don Quixote. She said that Kokoro was life-changing for her. That it really "puts into perspective" one's place in the world, particularly during a period of drastic change. Her words, not yours.

You didn't understand what she was saying then. How could you? You were only in ninth grade. You weren't that much interested in bigger philosophies other than your own egocentric, teenage ways. You weren't on the verge of a "drastic change". The most "drastic" thing that happened to you that year was your classmate confessing that he had a crush on you. And it was the bad kind of drastic.

But since you respected your club adviser, you filed her suggestion in the deep recesses of your heart. That flashback came tugging at your heartstrings when you stopped by a bookstore downtown in search for your first novel.

You spotted Kokoro in the international section. It was like seeing an old friend; a recognizable face in a sea of unrecognizable personalities. You walked up to it with a glimmer of hope in your heart.

You read the synopsis. It was too vague for you to glean the actual plot, which was perfect, and bought it. You didn't read it right away. You set it on your nightstand as a little pre-slumber treat, for when you get off work tomorrow.

———

Twenty pages in, and you couldn't put the book down at all.

You brought it to work and continued reading whenever no one was at the counter to borrow anything or had any questions about using the online catalogue on the computers. You weren't going to get in trouble for doing this, anyway. What good was a library that discouraged its staff from reading?

There weren't any chapters in the story, as you found out. It was merely divided into three unequally portioned parts: the narrator and his relationship with Sensei, his family, and then finally, an entire chunk that was meant to be a letter addressed to the narrator, written by Sensei. You didn't dare spoil yourself. It was too good, and you wanted the experience to remain untainted until the very end.

A colleague of yours — Nadia — took interest in your break time activity. She specialized in Asian literature, as per what she told you in the past, and studied Sōseki closely as part of her dissertation work. The two of you sat together to talk about your new book.

"In the original Japanese, he used a different character for the word 'loneliness'," Nadia told you while you two were having lunch. She produced a pen from her breast pocket and drew on her hand. "'寂しさ' is the common spelling. It's the standard translation, and in everyday speech you'll hear it a lot. Sōseki used this, though," she wrote a new set of characters on her palm. "'淋しさ', is how he spelled it in his book. It means the same thing, and it's interchangeable with the first version, but '淋しさ' denotes a… let's say a more 'inner' loneliness, than a 'physical' one."

"What's the difference?" You asked, intrigued by the nuance. You forked at your food.

"Well, you know how even when you're in the company of others, you still feel lonely? Like, you could be in a room, a party full of people, but there's this feeling inside you that makes you feel like you aren't really with these people? That. That's what the second spelling denotes."

You grew quiet after hearing that explanation. You put on your best interested yet nonchalant facade, nodded along, and shifted the focus of the conversation onto another subject. You didn't want to confront that sinking sensation in the pit of your stomach yet. You were at work. You needed to keep it together long enough so you could last through the day without falling apart.

You only let the dam break when you're alone in your bedroom that night, because all of your memories — an aggregate of your fondest high school and college years — came flooding back to you in a cruel deluge, washing you from head to toe with the contrasting loneliness that you're now left to deal with as an adult.

Nothing could describe the emptiness that engulfed you every time you arrived at the conclusion that you were really all you had now. Sure, you hung out out with your coworkers at the library from time to time, but apart from that, there was… nothing. Just you. And your comically large house in the middle of some town in Wisconsin. You felt like a girl in a movie. You wished you were a girl in a movie, because maybe then this would all be so easy.

It didn't help your case that the property also wasn't within the vicinity of traffic. You almost never heard anyone passing by, except Robert (or "Bob", as he insisted you called him) the postman who delivered your monthly bills, and Beth from USPS, when you ordered something online. You did your best to befriend them, because damn it all if you couldn't. You were going to go crazy with cabin fever and you were running out of things to polish and scrub and refine.

You got into the business of regularly cleaning the house a few months after your move aside from reading, as a "hobby". Signs of aging, you assumed. And you were only twenty eight.

You often surprised yourself — and this sparse company that dropped by every now and then — with your ability to keep your home tidy and gleaming. The postman asked you this question once. You told him you happened to like the chore, and he said that that's a good habit for a young person like you to have. You only smiled. What you weren't telling him was that it kept you from ruminating about your situation.

Try dusting a hundred ornaments, and see if you still have the energy to think about how isolated you are.

You lay in bed with your tear-stricken face almost every night, and tonight wasn't any different. You lacked the language to describe your state, which was laughable, considering you were always surrounded by hundreds and thousands of pages chock full of words that could embody your sorrow. You'd been working with them for years. One of them ought to be able to describe the whispers of your heart.

Well, Kokoro probably could.

This was enough reading, you decided. You inserted the bookmark and put the novel back in its designated spot near your lamp, and you turned the remaining light source off. You pulled the duvet up to your chin, yawned, and closed your tired eyes.

You needed to sleep early — it was Sunday tomorrow. You wanted to show up at the seven AM service.

–——

Church was nice.

You weren't expecting to have found comfort in a place like this — you weren't particularly religious, even though your parents were when they were still alive. One of the many items they left you were figurines of a crucified Christ and Mary in a niche in the staircase, complete with other paraphernalia to decorate the altar.

You put a framed picture of your mother and father there while you were cleaning once, and you replenished the flowers in the vase every week.

As for your inclinations, they were nowhere near that of your parents'. You had grown distant and evasive about religion; your environment in college only encouraged this, as you had more pressing matters to worry about than your spiritual state.

But really, the avoidance was due to the sanctimonious bible-thumpers that you'd meet every once in a while. A guy from college, whom you met at a random mixer to which that your friend dragged you along, turned out to be one of these people. You thought he was chill at first; he wanted to be friends until he bared his fangs at you when he found out that you swore and happened to be okay with "unholy" things. You ended up breaking off things with that guy and actively avoided him on the campus.

You experienced more encounters with people like that guy afterwards. You found it quite ironic that their avid dedication to evangelization only drew you further away from the god that they were introducing to you. That was not the kind of god that you wanted to meet — that was the main issue.

The God that you welcomed into your life resided in the chapel of your town; the one that you used to go to with your parents every Sunday when you were but eight years old. This God was warm; welcoming and kind; not at all tainted by the agendas of discrimination and exclusion, and He certainly did not tell you that you were going to burn in hell just because you had an extra piercing on your helix.

Reverend Bock, as you had come to know, approached you the first time you showed up, which was nearly a week after your return. You came early that day as they were still setting up the altar. He said he recognized you, and made the connection when you told him who you were, and that you moved back from the city to live in and look after your parents' house.

"I was only a deacon here, when your parents attended mass; they'd bring you here, every Sunday!" He said. "We're glad to have you back." He smiled, pat you lightly on the shoulder, and turned back to the altar. You took your seat in the second row of the pews.

Another reason of your preference to spend your Sunday mornings in this place of worship were the sounds of people. They soothed you; made you feel less alone. You liked closing your eyes when the choir and the congregation sang the hymns. You joined them whenever you knew the song; if you didn't know the words, then you simply stood and listened.

In the second week, you even availed a booklet of the songs so you could learn how to sing them.

You came home one day with this reflection in mind: people's experience of religion probably wouldn't be so traumatic if they were allowed to explore it for themselves. Nobody liked being force-fed dogmatic doctrine.

A lot could be said about the open doors of a chapel: everyone was free to enter just as they were to leave. You wouldn't be forced to stay, nor would you be excluded from joining, should the idea strike your fancy.

Conversely, if you bumped into someone on the street who coerced you into attending mass simply because they knew your late parents happened to be church folk during their lives, you'd have done everything in your power to steer clear of the chapel and its attendees.

But, now that you were entirely in charge of your experience with religion, you happened to like the people with whom you were spending your Sunday mornings.

You'd linger afterwards to socialize with some of the congregation members — this group was mostly composed of the elders — they noticed a new face (your face), asked when you moved in, and were even more delighted when they found out that you used to be a resident here as a child.

They were sympathetic to your situation; Mrs. Petersen and Mrs. Gruener most specially; they were the most concerned out of the bunch when you told them that you were by yourself now.

Your current reality — your being a young lady living alone in a relatively secluded area — was no source of abnormality to you, due to having been exposed to the many different kinds of lives when you were still in New York. To them, on the other hand, it was the opposite. You were susceptible to many difficulties because you had no one to look after you.

"You sure you're alright being on your own in your house?" Mrs. Gruener asked as you stood by your car. She was a little more open to your assertion when you said that you were fine; you were getting on pretty well and could handle most of the things that came your way; but she still had her reservations about your well-being.

You gave her another reassuring smile. "I'm alright, Mrs. Gruener. I'm used to it. I've been by myself since I was living in New York."

"You ought to marry soon so you wouldn't be alone," chimed in Mr. Hofstedtler. You sweat dropped and could only give him an awkward chuckle. Mrs. Gruener glared at him, as if to say, "not another word from you!"

"Well, it's good that you have a job at the library. You'll meet more people there, and you can make friends at work." She said as she pat your arm. "You know what? I'd like to have you over for dinner. I know that my Stephanie knows you already — you don't need to feel like a stranger."

"You're too kind, Mrs. Gruener. I really don't want to impo—"

"Nonsense!" She cut you off. "I'll see you later at six, you hear?"

Sheepish and hesitant, you acquiesced; you took your leave, unlocked your car, and slid into the driver's seat, running a new and revised mental note to pick up ingredients for pecan and blueberry pie.

———

Someone from church, you noticed, had been dropping by the library pretty consistently throughout the better part of this year. Until now, actually; and your coworkers were, in good faith, making a guessing game out of their observation. You weren't so sure what to feel about it, though.

A certain Lars Lindstrom had been making more frequent appearances at your workplace. He came almost every week, either to borrow or return a book, and his visits always occurred right when you were stationed at the check-out. Your coworkers were starting to wonder why this is. The game operated with one single question: "Why was Lars Lindstrom specifically timing his visits to coincide with the new full-time librarian?"

You didn't pick up on this unremarkable detail at first — it always went over your head, as you were more focused on the demands of your occupation — it was only after the ninth reiteration that Nadia mentioned their preoccupation over this interesting study, and you, too, began picking up the pattern.

Sometimes Lars would make conversation; usually it's something about the weather getting colder; if you had new books coming soon, and some technical queries about the online catalog. You replied to him as best you could; you didn't want to come off rude to a patron, and he appeared genuine in his desire to maintain some level of familiarity with you. The least you can do was to respond in kind.

The most you could do was save yourself from embarrassment and keep your mouth shut about what you really thought about Lars, because you did know him. You knew Lars because you had been friends during your childhood. You couldn't tell a single soul at work about it, though. That piece of news would sell like hotcakes, and you didn't want that unnecessary attention.

———

You met Lars one afternoon during the height of spring.

Your father took you for a walk in the small wooded area just a little ways from your house, because you wanted to pick some wildflowers for your room. Your grandmother made you a small ceramic vase for your sixth birthday, and you told your parents that you were putting it to good use instead of simply relegating such a beautiful, nacreous piece to become a mere passive dust collector.

The beaten path to the forest was your guide. You could have easily traversed it yourself without the supervision of a parent, but your mother didn't want to risk losing you in the woods, even it wasn't too dense or vast, and that you memorized the way back. You were a child. You shouldn't be left alone.

So there you were, right hand clutching your father's larger left, and the other, holding a straw basket and swinging the empty receptacle as you filled the silence with chatter directed solely at your father.

You managed to collect a sizeable bouquet already at around the thirty-minute mark, but you insisted on seeing the lake. Your father was skeptical — it was nearly five, and he intended on getting the two of you back home before dusk — but he relented after the second pout that you used against him. He was weaker to your schemes compared to your mother, and he couldn't stand to not indulge your requests.

Three people had beaten you to your spot when you arrived: one man and two boys. Your father was acquainted with the former, you soon learned. Mr. Lindstrom, as per his introduction to you. The latter were his sons, Gus and Lars.

He called them over to meet you. You, however, did the bravest thing a six-year-old could do at that time, and hid behind your father's legs, unsure of how to behave around the opposite sex.

Gus was the older sibling. He was more understanding of your shyness, and settled with waving at you as you peeked at him. The youngest — Lars — was more similar to you. He was also cowering from you. Your fathers had to drag you out of your hiding places so you could properly exchange names.

He wasn't even looking at you when he told you his. In an effort to get him to like you, at least — you were the same age, and thus were likely to be playmates — you offered him a bluebell from your basket, as some kind of truce.

Lars stared at the flower for a while. He took it from you and smelled it, then his eyes flickered at you. He must have muttered a 'thank you' then, but you didn't hear it clearly. He ran off to join his brother right away, gripping the flower in his left hand.

You saw him more frequently in the forest after that. You played all sorts of games with him and Gus, but you sensed that Lars was beginning to prefer you more, as he stayed close to you almost all of the time and rallied your aid for when his brother teased him a little too much. You'd "protect" Lars from Gus with no hesitation; the latter would only laugh at this, and redirect his provocations towards you, calling you Lars' "girlfriend" and that you were no fun for not playing along.

But why would you join in on teasing Lars? You didn't understand the way that these boys — or at least Gus — played. Lars was too soft-hearted, too kind to be treated this way. He was always the first to run up to you when you scraped your knee, or got your sweater fibers snagged by a stray branch.

He always held your hand when you walked back to your house, and promised you that you were going to see each other again tomorrow; if not at the forest, then at your house. "Yours is bigger," he'd say. You didn't mind; you liked having him over.

For a while, everything was perfect. After school and on weekends, it was an immediate guarantee that you'd be coming home to Lars.

And then, two years after you met, life happened: your father's job required you to move to another state. You had to leave everything behind. Your beloved home, your school, the forest, and Lars. Your Lars.

You hated and loved that day, because that was the last one that you had been permitted to spend in the woods with Lars. You watched the sun set into the horizon as you said your good-byes. He gave you a paper ring as you sat by the lake; something to remember him by — as if you could ever forget him.

Lars cried. He didn't understand why you couldn't stay. All he got from your words was that you were leaving him, and that he wouldn't see you for a very long time. You apologized — you didn't want to leave him, you asserted, but you had no other choice; you had to obey your parents. You reminded him that this was what they taught you two in church.

That wasn't enough of a reason for Lars. In full childish fashion, he asked you to elope with him. You told him that you couldn't possibly do that, for it'd be all for nothing; your parents would still separate you from each other. Neither of you were ready to face the glaring truth that the end was near, and that there was nothing you could do to prevent it.

You could only murmur a promise to Lars that you were going to go back to him some time in the future, once you were an adult yourself. You were going to meet each other here again when the time comes. If it comes.

Lars wasn't placated with that. He was adamant in his refusal to let you go; irrevocably convinced that you'd be gone forever if you slipped away now. You were both thrashing and weeping and stubbornly grasping onto each other — he even had to be physically pried from you, as he had laced his fingers into yours the entire time you walked back to your house, where his father had been waiting for him.

That was, perhaps, the most surprising occurrence that transpired on that evening. Lars, who always claimed that touching another person's skin burned him, was latching onto you; holding onto you so tightly that he wished he could be molded and attached to your flesh so that nothing and no one could ever sever him from you. And his grip hurt. It hurt so sweetly; like he wanted you to be haunted by that ache, so you'd carry that feeling in your body and never, ever forget him.

Therein lay the last time that you saw Lars Lindstrom: almost eight years of age; his eyes, glimmering with tears and red from strain, and his lips uttering pleas for you to not leave him; to come back to him, and fulfill your promise.

———

It had been twenty years since that sorrowful night.

You couldn't find it in you to broach the subject to Lars. For one, you thought the idea inappropriate. You weren't "friends" anymore (or at least that's what you believed); your relations were restricted between that of a librarian and a patron, and your being fellow churchgoers.

You weren't sure if he still remembered you, either, judging by how he'd speak to you. He's formal; distant, and tentative. Nothing about your shared history or even an inkling of your face being familiar to him came out of his lips. His eyes landed on you like he was seeing you for the very first time, and it stung like hell.

Lars had most likely blocked you out of his memory. That was your most viable theory as to why he wasn't able to recognize you. He had every reason to, anyway. In his eyes, you abandoned him. You believed it likely that the thought of you was just as painful to bring up as that of his late mother, so it wouldn't surprising if his consciousness had repressed to oblivion every trace of you.

For old times' sake, you went to the very forest in which Lars asked you to run away with him all those years ago, on a Saturday, after you had come back from town to pick up groceries.

Your goal was to revisit the lake. You didn't care that it was cold out; you were desperate for nostalgic comfort after having been miserable by yourself for months. You deserved this, at least. You took your time putting away the items into the pantry and the fridge before trudging up the stairs to get dressed and protect yourself from the elements.

You put on the headphones attached to your Walkman as you made your way to your destination. The songs on this CD hadn't been updated in a year, you suddenly recalled. You'd been planning to burn a new one at the library for a while now; you had to put it off, though, since you were still compiling a list of songs that you could listen to on your daily commute to work.

Devon, another coworker of yours, promised you he'd lend to you his Dusk and Summer CD so you can get a copy of the songs you wanted off the album. God bless that guy.

For now, your companions on this sojourn were Natalie Imbruglia and The Cranberries. Your hands were stuffed into the pocket of your jeans to protect them further from the cold, but you let your hair be swept by the wind, so you could at least bask in the crisp air blowing against your face. You couldn't get tired of this. You really do begin to appreciate such seemingly insignificant things like air quality once you reach a certain age.

The forest floor crunched beneath your boots with each step you took — you couldn't hear these, of course — and the views that your surroundings offered you, your eyes drank up greedily. Light blue contrasted against the dark brown branches of the trees all around you. "Greenery" probably wasn't so smart of a word choice. The foliage had yet to return; not for another few months were you bound to see the leaves sprout back in their usual lush glory along the boughs overhead.

Despite the lack of verdant growth, you found the scenery beautiful. You lifted one of the ear cups and listened to the burbling lake in the distance. You smiled. If you closed your eyes, you could see flashes of you and Lars, both twenty years younger; running around the bank and doing all sorts of things together.

The images warmed and squeezed at your heart. All of them were so easy to envision, yet so hard to let go. You could reminisce as much as you wanted, but you were painfully aware that you were never going to replicate that time in your life again, like watching castles built from sand slipping through your fingers as the wind blows past them, or a giant wave felling them with a single, unforgiving surge.

You wished Lars was here with you to ease the bitter-sweetness of it all.

You emerged from the tree line and reached the clearing in no time. Even after two decades, your feet knew exactly where to take you like it's muscle memory; inducible even without your willful, conscious direction.

A familiar figure in the distance made you stop dead in your tracks. You hadn't even crossed the halfway point when you noticed him — him — and he's where you once stood as children.

It's Lars. You'd know that two-toned jacket and the beanie anywhere.

He didn't see or hear you approaching — thank God — his back was to you and he was deep in thought.

You took this opportunity to back away slowly and leave without being detected. You didn't foresee that your wishful thinking would actually produce a tangible manifestation of your thoughts; you asked for Lars and the universe gave you him. Funny how that didn't work out all those years before.

Then, as if to mock you for your cowardice, the universe smote you by having you step on a bent twig. The sound didn't fail to announce your presence, because Lars was quick to whip his head around to spot you where you were now frozen in place. You had no choice but to accept this wish back into your palms and join him at the edge of the bank.

Lars was already smiling upon seeing you drawing near him.

"Hi," he said. You took off your headphones, gave him a similarly polite smile and returned the greeting.

"Do you come here often?" He asked. You shook your head.

"Not really. I just didn't have anything else to do on my day off." You fiddled with the wire that was attached to the Walkman. "I live nearby, so I decided to check out the nearest place outside."

"Oh? Which house?" He gave you a curious smile, like he was humoring you.

"The one directly from the path on the west side."

"That's all yours?" Lars asked, again, like he was humoring you.

Your heart twinged at that question. Did he or did he not remember you? He wouldn't have asked that if he did. You pushed the feeling away so you could respond.

"Yeah," was the only thing you managed to say.

"It's a pretty big house."

"My parents left it to me."

You were desperate to come up with a better way to continue the conversation; to sustain the topic that could branch into a dialogue about your past friendship, because the elongated pause was clearly evincing that you're somewhat inept at rekindling the connection you once had with your childhood friend.

Lars beat you to it, however.

"I requested a book at the library a few months back," he began. You looked up at him. You couldn't believe that this was now the same Lars who used to stand on his tiptoes so he could coronate you with a twig crown. He was tall; similarly worn by the toil of early adulthood, but he was recognizable. He was still Lars. The same child-like spark flashed across those dazzling blue eyes of his as you stared into them.

"…but I haven't seen it on the catalogue yet. Any idea when it's gonna come in?"

You cleared your throat when you caught yourself gawking at him. "Um… When did you put in the request?"

"Last June."

You hummed. "New acquisitions usually take a few weeks, or sometimes one to six months — at least at our library — to appear on the shelves… And we've been getting a lot of patron requests lately. The process take a bit longer when it's like that — and some books can be pretty difficult to acquire. May I ask what the title of the book is? I can check it for you in the inventory on Monday, if you want..." You trailed off upon realizing how much you had chattered.

A flush of red bloomed on Lars' face, which you found strange. "I… I don't remember it now anymore, 'c-cause it's been so long…" He said. He was clenching and unclenching his fists by his sides and avoiding your eyes. Those mannerisms… You'd seen them all before. He's nervous; about what, you didn't know.

You blinked at him. "Oh, well… That's too bad. Hopefully it's there and you just haven't seen it."

You looked down at your hands, which had resorted to coiling the wire out of desperation to be occupied with something other than just hanging idly by your sides.

This was too painful to bear.

"I'll get going now. It's getting pretty dark, and I need to turn on the lights in the house." You gave Lars another small smile as you made your exit. He didn't say anything until you were at least a few feet away.

"See you at church tomorrow!"

You looked over your shoulder one last time. You raised up a hand to acknowledge him.

———

It's six in the morning and your bed was on fire. Your body felt like it was on fire.

Your head was pounding and your sinuses were blocked; the faint morning light, that you used to look forward to wasn't so pleasant now; it was hurting your eyes; and to complete the syndrome, like the proverbial cherry on top, the Sahara and all of its cacti tenants had relocated to your throat overnight. You pulled the duvet closer to your body, cursing the cold despite the heater having been turned on and rolling onto your stomach in an effort to ease the discomfort.

The temporary darkness that enveloped you provided you with the space to identify the culprit of your illness: the walk that you took yesterday. You didn't cover your head, and had been too indulgent in your desire to let the wind card its fingers through your hair. Now you were reaping what you had sown.

You were no stranger to this problem. You had taken care of and nursed yourself back to health before, when you were all alone in New York — this was no different. This was why you kept medicine in your nightstand.

But first, breakfast. You're nauseous and you certainly didn't want a repeat of last year when you took that Tylenol on an empty stomach.

Another reminder flashed in your mind. You groaned.

You had to call Steph first, and let her know that you won't be able to come to work for at least a week. You had saved up enough sick days for this, since you weren't falling ill every month — someone would be able to take your place while you recover from the consequences of your minuscule blunder.

On the count of three you got up, despite the plethora of protests that your muscles were raining down on you. You shrugged on a dressing robe — a gift from a distant aunt — and did your best to descend the stairs without toppling to the first floor like a child who just learned how to walk. Once you got there safely, you called the library's landline and asked for Steph Gruener.

"Oh, you poor thing," she said upon hearing the reason for your incoming week-long absence. "Trish will cover for you, don't you worry. You rest up and call if you need anything, alright?"

You rested your head on the wall by the phone. "I will. Thanks, Steph." You hung up and massaged your temples. This flu was doing a number on you. You really should have worn a hat yesterday, you berated yourself. Your mother would've told you the same thing.

The next order of business, after putting in a notice, was to make breakfast and take your first dose of medicine.

It took damn near every drop of effort from your feeble body to whip up a batch of chicken noodle soup, but you pulled through; soon you were sitting at the kitchen table and savoring every spoonful until you were satiated. You could spend the entire day just eating this. The craving, really, was less about the flavor and more about the feeling that your mother was here with you, helping your recuperate.

Suddenly you're seven again, and nothing is amiss in the world.

You downed the Tylenol with some ginger tea and went back upstairs to lounge in the library, Kokoro in hand with a blanket draped over your legs. The sun wasn't scalding today; you figured some sunlight would do you good, being plagued with a cold and all. You could hear your mother's voice recounting every single thing you had to do for your health to improve. Well, you always did seek her advice for almost everything in life, even after she had passed.

You're abruptly awoken from your nap — after having cleared only a few chapters through the second part of the novel — by a series of knocks that were echoing through the dead silence of the house. At first, the disturbance irked you. A sharp headache introduced itself around your forehead and temple area and you mulled over pretending to be asleep until the ruckus would convince itself of your indifference or to get up and see who it was at your porch.

The second option outweighed the farcical nature of the first. Groaning and moaning, you peeled the blanket off yourself and put on your slippers before making your way downstairs as carefully as you did prior. You pulled the robe tighter to your body.

Who could be dropping by? Robert, Mr. Postman? He had already dropped by this week; you weren't expecting any letters from anyone anyway. Everybody used their cellular phones for that now.

You braced yourself for the incoming interaction with the postman, only for your expectations to be subverted by a certain tall gentleman in that two-toned jacket and beanie. And a scarf. He was wearing a scarf this morning.

Lars.

Worry was written all over his features as soon as you opened the screen door and eliminated all barriers between the two of you. You maintained your distance, however; you stepped back when he stepped closer to you, something that might have stung him a little, because his expression twitched upon seeing your reaction to his implicit need for proximity. You didn't want to risk infecting Lars. That's really all there was to your avoidance.

Whether or not it was wise to uphold and apply that view onto every circumstance involving said young man, you really couldn't tell.

The two of you exchanged greetings.

"You weren't at church today," Lars observed with a small, concerned frown.

Right. You did sort of agree to "see" him in church yesterday at the clearing. You mentally added that to your list of transgressions against your estranged childhood friend.

He didn't let you defend your absence — it was not out of malice, from what you could tell from his demeanor — rather, it's as if he was preserving your dignity and assuming that you were simply unable to show up due to a reason outside the zone of your control or intention.

A small paper bag was put in front of you. "This is from Mrs. Gruener. It's… soup, I think. She says it's good for colds. And there's extra medicine in there… somewhere," he said. You took the bag from him, purposefully avoiding brushing against his hand when you do. You congratulated yourself for being successful. He handed you another item (the one he was hiding behind his back) to complete the small care package.

"And this," Lars continued. "These are for you, too."

It's a bouquet of pink chrysanthemums. You blinked at the arrangement for a moment before you snapped out of it. The crinkling of the wrapping paper was so needlessly loud when you received them from Lars — you couldn't even look at him straight. You cradled it in your arms.

"Are these also from Mrs. Gruener?" You asked.

Lars gave you a tight-lipped smile. That told you all you needed to know: the mums were from him.

"Y-yes," he said. The smile widened. Liar. You bit back your own delighted reaction. "They're from her, too. You —" he faltered; he started fidgeting with his hands, which were now free. "You aren't allergic, are you?"

You shook your head. "Thank you for these. Please extend my thanks to Mrs. Gruener, too."

There was that smile again. Lars bade you good-bye and went back to his car not long after. You also retreated inside the house, but you watched him depart from the driveway through the screen door, and until he disappeared from your view.

You mourned that your cold had dulled your olfaction, thus disabling you from appreciating the flowers that you had received. Nonetheless, they weren't neglected: you prepped and transferred the mums to an unused crystal vase that you delegated to reign over the space on the living room coffee table.

You stared at it for a good few seconds before uprooting yourself to take another nap. You checked the time. Your next dose of medicine wasn't for another few hours — you clambered back up the stairs and returned to bed for some much coveted sleep.

———

Your week off work, dedicated to your recovery from the nasty cold that you caught from your unfortunate walk in the forest, was characterized with a healthy peppering of visits from Lars, much to your surprise and mild bewilderment. They happened only in the morning at around seven or earlier. You speculated that he might have been dropping by before heading to work.

He never really went inside (again, you didn't invite him in, so as to contain the contagion within your domicile); he just stood at the porch (while exponentially getting closer to you each time) and inquired after your well-being; after that, he'd exit and get back inside his car to leave. You generously enlightened him about your progress every time he came by, as that visibly made his face glow brighter, and even more when you told him that you were confident that you'd be alright in no time.

You began to wonder if someone was putting him up to this, and it inundated you with remorse. Maybe Mrs. Gruener? Or Karin? You didn't really know. You wanted to tell Lars that he needed not go through the trouble of checking in on you every day; that he could just call your landline and ask from there.

But you didn't have the heart to discourage him, for he appeared so genuinely excited to see you emerge from the screen door, looking slightly better than last time.

You allowed yourself to believe that Lars wasn't being coerced or instructed. He was, you convinced half of yourself, doing this because he himself wanted to see you.

Why else would he have beamed when you told him that you might be strong enough already by Sunday to attend the sermon?

"Church isn't the same without you," he said to you that day. He was fidgeting with his gloves. "Neither is the library."

You lingered by the doorway upon hearing those words from him. "Really? Trish is covering for me, though."

"Trish isn't you," Lars countered. He sounded a little hurt.

You two shared a look. You refused to ask him to expound on what he could've meant by that; you didn't think your heart could handle it. (Could it ever?) You needed to steer the conversation to another direction, so you took that chance when it presented itself.

"Did you find the book you requested?" You asked.

"Yes," Lars nodded. He scratched the back of his neck. "It arrived last Monday."

You smiled. Something about that also sounded like a bluff, but you didn't worry yourself about it. Or you tried to, at least. "That's good to hear."

You directed your eyes at some nondescript portion of the Australian tea shrubs behind Lars before deciding that you needed to end this conversation now. You didn't want to keep him any longer for an exchange that hardly offered him any utility or entertainment. At least in your belief, that is.

"Thanks for dropping by again to check on me," you said. You made a move to retreat to the safety of the foyer. "I'll… get back inside now. Don't want to—"

Lars interrupted you. "You'll be at the service tomorrow, right? You'll be healthy enough?"

You stopped where you stood. "I… I hope so," you said. You softened the blow with a smile and a harmless request. "Save me a seat?"

Lars nodded. "I will. You can sit next to me and Gus and Karin."

The image of that very proposition flashed briefly in your mind. Beautiful. Idyllic. Temporary.

That's why it broke your heart when it rained the next day. You didn't want to risk venturing out into the cold once again, especially at such a precarious state, where you're teetering between being en-route to recovery but treading the fine line that's keeping you from falling into that God-awful cold again.

Twenty-eight years in this body had been enough for you to be well-acquainted with your proclivities. You were weak to the cold; that's a hardened fact. Even if you'd be bundled up enough to not let it seep through your layers, or if you turned on the heater in your car, exposing yourself to a weather such as the one outside at this moment would likely take you back to square one.

Your body was notorious for relapsing when sick. That point was made very clear by your mother countless times in the past. If anything so much as triggered your symptoms, you'd be in for another round of chicken noodle soup and Tylenol and ginger tea and steam inhalations and — ugh. It would never end.

You needed to be at your most vigilant in this stage of the cold, so you put off hearing mass. Missing it was a glowing, red, hot knife to your chest. And to Lars'. Oh, Lars. He was expecting you today. He'd have saved you a seat. He'd have told Gus and Karin about you. He'd had waited eagerly, patiently for you to show up through those doors.

You had settled for that scenario in this context, because the other one — the one closer to the promise you made as children — as symbolized by that paper ring, didn't seem so possible now. All you needed to do was to go to church, and you didn't. You couldn't.

You whispered an apology to Lars against the fleece blanket in which you were wrapped, like you were confessing to an imaginary priest inside an equally imaginary confessional, hoping to be absolved of your sins one last time.

You looked at the clock. It had been an hour since seven-thirty, and you're alone in your stupidly large house, vaguely sick and stewing in guilt for something you couldn't help.

You curled in on yourself. The feeling curdled in your stomach, and it hurt; you soothed it by repeating to yourself that this is what's needed to be done, that if you didn't do this, the outcome would be worse. You couldn't control the weather. You couldn't put your health in jeopardy again. If you didn't stay in, then your efforts to take care of yourself, along with Mrs. Gruener's and Lars', would've been wasted. If you didn't do this, then it'd all be for nothing.

You found yourself feeling like you were twenty years younger under that blanket; you're in your parents' car, watching from the back seat as you pulled away from your house and left the town you once called home because of the demands of your father's job. Because it's what was needed to be done. You understood him. He was being responsible. He was simply an adult who had to make a difficult decision. You were an adult who had to make a difficult decision. But doing what was needed to be done never once stopped leaving a bad taste in your mouth.

You were moments away from falling asleep again when three loud knocks promptly yanked the opportunity away from you. You would've have noticed by now, had you been keen enough to discern that specific pattern — it had been your alarm of some sort these past couple of days — but as it was, guilt and drowsiness, when mixed, created a substance that put you into a state of stupor, and you were drowning in it.

You secured the robe over your body and got up, bothering no more to fix your hair or to look more presentable as you unlatched the chain and opened the doors.

You couldn't even get a word in. You're frozen in time, in both the present and past tense, as Lars drew you into his arms as soon as all barriers between you disappeared. No longer was this the embrace of an eight-year-old that was powerless in the face of his father. Lars was sturdier now. More certain. More determined and stubborn.

He wasn't bound by weakness born out of his circumstance, nor the pleasantries that he'd been employing last week. At long last, he had crossed the threshold of your home and had broken down the walls that you two had been pretending to respect over the past couple of days. Your leg, which instantly stepped back to prop yourself up, struggled to bear your combined weights. He sensed your plight, and gently tipped your forward, so you were leaning onto him.

Lars told you once, when you were children, that touching you "didn't burn". You never really understood what he meant by that at the time. You only knew that he loved being near you; holding your hand, linking arms with you, and hugging you each time you said good-bye to each other. You never truly parsed his reason for choosing you above everyone else.

You were about to find that out now.

"You didn't come to church," Lars said. You could barely hear him. His grip around you tightened. "I was worried."

You swallowed that enormous lump in your throat. "It's raining and I'm still unwell," was your only response. Lars didn't let up.

"You told me you'd be okay." He frowned, cupping your face with his hands with so much familiarity that it nearly took your breath away. His words too, pushed that knife deeper into your chest. You were bleeding and it's getting all over him.

"The rain — the rain makes me sick, Lars," you reasoned, half to yourself to alleviate the guilt, and the other, to Lars. You tried to look away. "It would've made me feel worse."

"I know," was what he said. He embraced you again, nuzzling into your neck. You weren't sure if you could breath still. "But I was hoping you'd still come. Karin said you get less sick when you're older. And we aren't kids anymore."

You pulled away just enough to look at him. Lars met your eyes. He drew you closer than ever before and rested his forehead upon yours. You didn't know if the tear that rolled down your cheek was his or your own because of how little the space between the two of you was.

All of a sudden you're being carried to the living room. Lars' steps were heavy upon the floorboards; they creaked beneath you and him; a large contrast to the light pattering of his and your feet whenever you used to play inside your house. You wrapped your arms around his neck in response, afraid to fall down or slip from his grasp. He smiled sweetly at you.

"I got you," he said. "I can lift lots of things now."

Lars sat on the divan — that's where you had been laying before he came. Now you were in his lap. The feel of his jeans against your legs were doing all sorts of things to you that you couldn't name, so you just elected to push them aside and unpack them later.

Your heart stopped when Lars put out a hand to fix your hair. He righted the strands around your face; he combed down with his fingers what he could reach, and finished it up by tucking the last loose tuft behind your ear.

"Did you keep it?" Lars asked.

Your mind was too busy taking all of it in; frankly, you hadn't the slightest idea as to what he was pertaining.

You stared at him. "Keep what?"

"Your ring. The one I gave you." Lars leaned in. He took one of your hands and laced his fingers through the gaps like he used to. You mirrored him.

"Don't tell me you've forgotten about that."

"No. Absolutely not."

"Good," he said, searching your eyes. "Because I meant what I said back then."

That pulled a soft chuckle from you. "What, that you'll elope with me?"

Lars laughed too. "No, silly. There's no need for that." He bumped noses with you. "You're here now. You came back to me."

"You remember me?" You pressed, hopeful. He closed his eyes. His big, warm palms enclosed your arms and caressed them.

"I never forgot about you," he said. "I didn't need to say anything about it because I know you remember me, too."

You were sure now that the salt you were tasting were from your own tears.

"I'm sorry, Lars," your fingers curled into the material of scarf he was wearing. Your vision, unfocused and bleary, turned him into an indiscriminate palette of his colors. Your bottom lip quivered. "I'm so sorry for leaving. I'm sorry for not going to church today."

He shook his head. "Not your fault."

That was the blow that broke you. Lars drew you back in, and there, onto his shoulder you wept. You let everything out: the pain that you'd been carrying since your parents' death, the relief of confirming Lars' lack of resentment, and the happiness derived from this happy, seamless reunion. Here you were, finally — back in Wisconsin, wearing your mother's heirloom negligee and being held together by the last line that led you back to your childhood.

Through it all, Lars kissed you; along your neck, your cheek, your temples, and the small sliver of skin that your slightly disheveled robe presented to him. He ran his hands up and down your back as a response to the shudders that tormented you.

How terribly you longed for his touch; it seared and cured you at the same time, like silver laving over a burn to promise its speedy recovery. Nothing could ever compare. Nothing could have ever felt so good as this.

Lars kept you there and didn't move until you faced him. That's when you saw that he was crying, too. You kissed away his tears before he decided that this simply wasn't enough anymore.

The reconnection was swift. Those twenty painful years were nothing but ash as he fit his lips onto yours, finalizing his and your agony. Lars never said anything because he knew he didn't need to. Your heart could recognize him anywhere. His place in it never disappeared; neither did yours in his. You just needed to be reminded of it.

An unembellished kiss would have sufficed, but you're both older now; a little wiser, too, perhaps, but definitely hungrier. Lars had gone from bruising your lips and sucking on your tongue to spoiling your neck with the same fervor. You could only hold onto him and receive all of his affection as it came onto you like a deluge. You're a chalice, and Lars was the river that flowed from the throne of the Lamb — whatever spilled out of your cup, he poured back.

Lars sat up. He peeled and took off everything on his person, even the shirt that he wore beneath, until they were but a pile of clothes on the carpet. You ventured to go through the same motions, but he stopped you.

"You'll be cold," he said. "Stay like this."

You protested. "You'll warm me up. It's okay, please."

"No," he asserted. "Keep them on. You look really pretty in them."

You hung your head in defeat. "Oh, Lars… Since when did you become like this?"

He pecked at your chest, right where the sweetheart neckline of the negligee dipped; just a little above the lace trim and where your cleavage began. "You've been gone a long time," he said. Your chest constricted at that remark, but you're quickly brought back under the rays of his teasing by his continuation. "I've changed just as you had."

"Hopefully not too much," you murmured.

He shook his head. "I'm still me," he tilted his head and gave you a peck.

Lars flipped the tables so you were the one leaning back this time. He returned to your lips, and sans the guidance of his vision, he slowly hiked up the hem of your slip. Your thighs zipped up on instinct, but one discreet pass of Lars's hand over your skin was enough to relax them and allow him room to feel you up and more. He ridded you of your panties; he was beyond delighted that you were already soaked just from kissing and being kissed by him.

"Do you remember when—" he slid the flimsy material off your ankle, "—when we used to play here? We'd pretend the divan was a boat and I would row it for you." He said, amused by the recollection.

"It's…" you gasped when his finger rubbed between your folds to collect what you'd produced for him, "it's a bit hard to… to think when you're doing this to me, Lars… Ah…!"

He pushed a sodden finger in; the longest of his five. You were full of him right away. The heel of his callused palm felt so heavenly on your clit. "But you do remember?" He insisted, and curled the digit once or twice. You couldn't tell. You were busy hanging onto him to preserve your sanity.

"I do," you replied. You didn't see Lars smiling at you as you were bowing your head, watching as he fingered you open for him.

"That's what people say when you ask them to take you as their spouse," Lars said. "If they want to, of course…"

You failed to see what Lars was getting at, and even more did you fail at keeping your eyes open after he added a finger. Puffs of air escaped your throat as he settled into a slow and steady rhythm. Lars watched you all throughout, wanting to bask in every twitch and shift of your features to see what felt the best for you. You adored how attentive he was, but you were too bashful to verbalize it. You could only moan and kiss him as a response to his loving effort to make you feel good.

Lars nosed into your cheek. "I've so many things I want to say to you," he confessed, "but… It's like my mind is a sheet of white. My heart's doing all the talking."

You seized his arms for support. "And what's it — nngh! — what's it saying…?" You shivered as he crept so dangerously close to that throbbing patch of nerves within you.

"That I miss you. And I love you," he kissed you between almost every word, "and you're so pretty—"

You jolted when he nudged you a little further, and in return, your fingernails injected into his upper arm.

"— that I could just eat you up," he concluded, chuckling to himself.

He needn't be told that he found where you wanted him most — your body did that for him by arching off the high armrest and into his chest. You stayed there, arms now looped round his shoulders as he sped up. The pace was maddening; he could reach so far into you that it almost felt like he was licking at your deepest spots and gnawing at your soul from the inside out.

"Lars," you cried out. The band was about to snap. "Lars, I'm—"

He nodded into your hair. "I know. I'll get you there. Please don't hold back..."

You crumbled earlier than you expected. Lars was there to gather you back into one piece, however; he cooed at you as you came, coaxing you back to the real world gradually by holding you fast to his chest, reminding you again that he had you and that you're okay.

With what little strength you had, you wrapped yourself around him and soaked up his warmth. Lars was soft. He always was.

The two of you stayed like that, just holding each other in the silence of the moment. Lars allowed you take off the robe at least — it had gotten a little too unbearably warm for you, and you had begun perspiring — he undressed himself all the way, too, and you're overcome with shame from the way your mouth watered upon seeing him in full. You were all over him again.

"Can I touch you…?" You asked. His half-hard cock was heavy against his stomach.

"Yes," he took your wrist to bring you to him. "Please."

Lars hissed as you began stroking him up and down his length. You didn't spend much time on that, though; you mounted him just enough so you can replace your hand with your cunt, covering him with your slick from the head to the base. He groaned. He bit his lip and grabbed hold of your waist.

"Stop teasing," Lars whined. He didn't seem like he meant that, though; he was subconsciously canting his hips up into you himself.

"Do you really want me to stop?" You asked, breathless.

His reply — a tearful "no" — urged you further. You ground onto him with renewed fervor, angling yourself just enough so your clit would catch onto the feel of his cock. In no time, you're bowing your head and letting your jaw go slack at the onslaught of sensations dulling your previous headache; you set an even rhythm as you transfer your grip from his arms to his shoulders.

Lars was no different. He was rutting into your wetness just as desperately as you were coating him in it. He put out a hand to cup your cheek, eager for you to keep your gaze on him. You honored his request by joining him there; resting your palm atop his. He couldn't believe it. You came back. You're here, and you were giving yourself to him.

"I want—" he sucked in a sharp breath, "I want to be inside you," he murmured against your lips, replicating your apologetic confession from earlier — his, however, was of molten desire — potent, scalding, and concentrated; a shrift that asked not for a consequent absolution, but for wholehearted fulfillment.

You halted. Lars took the initiative and laid you back down the divan, right where you had left your blanket from earlier. He took his time to make sure that your head was resting on the pillow. You gave him a kiss of gratitude as you welcomed him in.

Lars fit into you so easily, as if you were always meant to be joined like this. His hands, which had been gripping the cushioned seat of the divan, found your own; he pinned them on either side of your head, so he could moor himself before proceeding to move his hips.

He's wracked with tremors at the first three drags; his brows were cinched tightly together as he tried his hardest to compose himself. He couldn't help it. You were so soft, so tight, and so, so warm; he'd never felt this before. Nothing measured up to this, to you — the cynosure of his love, his heart's long-lost keeper — he'd been waiting for you just as much as you had, and now that you were here, coupled with him, he was determined to never let you go.

You wriggled loose from Lars' left grip and brushed at his cheekbone to reel him back in. He opened his eyes when he felt you touch him. He pressed his lips to your palm; his gesture of gratitude and a reply to your implicit inquiry of his state.

All your intentions to reorient Lars with reality vanished when he started moving again. He took his time savoring you in this languorous pace, and he dipped down to kiss you again. Truth be told, it was taking everything in Lars to keep his composure; to remain level-headed even if every fiber of his being was screaming at him to fuck you.

And you could feel it. You could feel it in his kiss; how hard he bore down unto you, and how he ravened the air that your body was producing. He caged his appetite for you within the confines of osculation; abstemiously eschewing the longing that had since grown into an esurient, rapacious entity ever since he went through that front door.

You freed yourself from him, done out of both the necessity for oxygen and the decree you had prepared to let him do with you what his entire being had been imploring since the onset of your lovemaking.

"Lars," you sighed, gulping down everything that your lungs required, "I can take it, Lars… Please."

Lars shook his head. "I… — ah — I don't want to hurt you…"

"I want all of you," you protested. He faltered, and you groaned at the sudden surge of his cock inside you, but he scrambled to right himself. You shook away his last quiescent hand and ordered him to look at you by capturing his chin.

"Let it ache, Lars. Give it all to me."

Like a taut rope finally cut, you're pulled into two behests: one, to sustain your mastery of your lucidity; and two, to hold space for the duress of Lars' pivoting to a harsher cadence.

You didn't bother stifling the sounds that he's tearing out of you. You're now consigned to wail an incoherent admixture of his name and your vocalizations of pleasure, most of which he imbibed and fed on as he fucked you with unmitigated ardor.

"You love me this much?" Lars rasped, smiling lopsidedly from how affected you were by him.

You nodded; your eyes were clouded with blissful tears as you affirmed his suggestion. He kissed your forehead — an act so tender, so chaste in contrast to how he was jostling you on the divan.

Lars licked the tears that rolled down your cheek. "I love you, too. I've a-always… loved you…"

He scooped you into his arms and took every liberty to ensconce himself into your hair, where you could hear him grunting and moaning each time he sunk into you. You were no better. You were getting exponentially louder the more his pelvis rubbed deliciously against your clit — you needed more of that — that was what you needed to clear the final leg of your ascent and eventual collapse.

You made an effort to buck your hips up into his to chase your nascent orgasm. Lars perceived your needful wish, and sought to perfect it by lifting himself up and off you; he tacked his thumb on your aching nub to draw tight, desperate ringlets upon it — his adoring answer to your impassioned adjuration.

You had not the presence of mind anymore to anticipate the intensity of your fall. You're screaming his name in billowing swells that matched your body's erratic undulation. Lars absorbed all of it; he followed closely, pumping you full with his cum until he was satiated and empty. Your vision turned velvet black, and the last thing that your senses detected was Lars swathing you with his arms.

———

You woke up some time in the afternoon.

Lars must have cleaned you up while you were passed out, because you mostly smelled of your soap; you're in your pajamas (and considerably more covered than earlier), and you're lying in bed. He, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found.

You couldn't have dreamed of the events of this morning; you would have woken up still in the living room if you did. Your hips were sore, too; you're heavily decorated with pink and purple under the collar of your top which you noticed on your way out, when you passed by the mirror on the closet door. You smiled as you lightly grazed your fingertips over the patches.

You headed downstairs, and there you happened upon Lars; now presentable but more visibly at ease in his brown plaid shirt. He was standing by the phone. You noticed him blushing upon spotting you emerge from the staircase, but he didn't join you just yet. He was still talking to someone on the other line, so you decided to take initiative.

"…Yeah. Yeah, she's fine. She just needed some rest," you heard him reply to the person that he was in correspondence with. You approached him for a hug, and he pulled you in. The conversation continued.

"I'll be home later. I wanna hang out with her for longer." Lars said, looking down at you with a smile. "Okay — bye, Karin."

You stood on your tiptoes to kiss him, and he scooped you up to meet you halfway, prompting you to wrap your legs around him. He was taking you back to the living room, but this time he sat on the window alcove. The rain had let up by now — you could see every fine detail on his face from the sunlight filtering through the curtains. You smoothed down the stray, dirty blond strands that framed his face.

"What are you doing out of bed?" Lars asked. He rubbed noses with you. "You should be resting."

"You weren't there when I woke up," you replied, "I was worried that you left already…"

He shook his head. He sat back and brought you into his chest so that you were laying on him. "I could never leave you like that," he said. He was playing with the tips of your hair. "We've been apart for too long. It's not right."

You relaxed into his body, breathing in his scent and yours.

"I saw the book that you were reading." Lars said after a while.

"Yeah? You read it?"

"Just a little," he replied. "I wanted to read more, but I had to make a call. I'd been gone for hours. Karin was worried about me, and also about you. She thought you'd relapsed."

You laughed. The vibrations rumbled throughout his chest and encouraged Lars to pull you in closer, like he was reassuring himself that you were here, in his arms; real, alive, and permanent.

"Sorry for worrying her. And for monopolizing your time," you chuckled, "but I hope you'll let me be greedy for a while."

You craned your neck to look up at Lars. He kissed you once more.