Overcast skies melt cool grey light around everything within view, the red tops of the houses the only thing seeming to stand out in vibrant contrast to their dim backdrop. From his position on the balcony, fingertips tracing patterns over the metal banister, Noah pictures every person walking below with light blue eyes and constellation freckles in a smattering over cheeks. The wrinkle of her nose is something he remembers fondly, even after all these years, and he thinks of saturated skin and red pooling beneath alabaster. Itâs all heâs been thinking about for some time now; too long for him to even count all of the days, the months, the years. He leans forward, and he inhales, and today is the first that he can recall in his immediate memory the scent of her perfume. Perhaps something in him knows. Perhaps everything in him knows.
Someday. Not today, but someday. I promise. They hold hands ten years ago, not the way that friends hold hands. Thereâs a reverence to it, sitting on that park bench on the East End, talking like strangers, staring like lovers, and touching like theyâre aware of something on a level that no one else is aware of it. Itâs never seemed like too far fetched a thing to him when it comes to her, some ethereal resonance tingling just over his edges, over the places sheâs almost touched but never been close enough to. So heâd made a promise t her, ten years ago, and two months ago heâd decided it was time. Two months, so many years past when he shouldâve, when they shouldâve, but thereâs still some kind of thrill in âbetter late than neverâ. If nothing else, thereâs truth, too.
A handwritten letter addressed to Daxton Rose Bennett, penned with care, and folded gentle. Meet me. Please. If you still feel anything, meet me. Thereâd been a date and a location attached somewhere among the flowing lines, and hope tucked neatly into the spaces between each word. Itâs not that he expects anything from her, or that it would even come as a surprise if she didnât show up at all. Itâs been a long time. Itâs been so long that he aches thinking about it. Still, he canât help but fling something desperate into the wind, something he hopes carries, he hopes brings her back because thereâs no more color in his life. Because the only time he can remember seeing something clearly is the last time he looked at her face, eyes downcast, lashes fanned against her cheeks; sad, sad smiles. Sad smiles he put there. Sad smiles the ring still on his finger off-sets only slightly.
Heâs never taken it off. She gave it to him for his thirtieth birthday. It seems like eons ago now, like another lifetime from now, from forty, from wanting. Wait. No. Thatâs wrong, isnât it? Noah had wanted her then, too. Itâd just been different. The circumstances had been different, and now he can feel it in his bones. He can feel everything, just like he can see it, too. Taking that job at Oxford, in the same place his father used to stand. Understanding that heâs ready to be the man he was supposed to be all along. Understanding that the time he wasted shouldnât be the time he continues to waste. Understanding that a hotel room in Denmark can stretch to a house in the English countryside, and oh, he doesnât want to be alone anymore. He doesnât want to be alone, and he doesnât want anyone else. Maybe he never has. Not properly.
So he stands and he hopes and the sun gets low, and thatâs okay. Thatâs okay. He canât see it but for the slight fading behind the clouds, the red on the buildings dimming to maroon, and the stream of human life wandering by below increasing for the end of the work day. He left her name with a key card in the lobby, and he prays to a God he does not believe in that sheâll come to claim it. Absently, he twists his ring with its indigo stone around and around on his finger.
