#leitcr

 The adoption hadn’t really taken much thought. She was lonely, in no place to find love, and having a child of her own had always been out of the question. Yet, adoption somehow sprung into her mind as a perfect solution. To her surprise not only was she approved in record time, she was allowed to give a home to a child who was barely out of infancy; his mother a tragic victim of an auto accident, having no family of her own to speak of, and as per her last wishes, the child was adopted out to a single mother. 

She and James took regular strolls through the park, him nestled safely in his pram, blue eyes staring in sharp wonderment as the clouds and birds passed above him. Despite his namesake, he was an incredibly well behaved child. Just over eight months and rarely a peep out of him; no tantrums and never keeping her up late into the night. She often found herself springing up from slumber and rushing over to his crib, terrified the silence could only mean the worst, only to find him peacefully sleeping, his over-sized cowboy teddy bear, (a gift from Felix,) watching over him.  Routine had always been her way, not a single moment lived without at least some planning; scheduling meals and appointments no less than a week in advance ------ starting every morning with a cup of black coffee and an apple from her garden. Was it really any surprise to her then, that the one day she chose to deviate from the routine, the single solitary anomaly in her otherwise predictable and peaceful life would be this day? 

She’d forgotten to bring in her paper from outside before the storm, and it had been left ruined and soaked; therefore rather than take James along his normal trek through the park, basking in the glorious fauna and flora of the tree’s shady canopy, she stood at a busy corner where two streets intersected just near the park’s entrance.The man inside the small newsstand, with its faded paint and flimsy racks was griping at her for paying in small change, and she was giving it right back to him that the condition of his offerings hardly deserved cover price at all. It was a heated exchange which kept her suitably distracted from the man who approached, benign enough, his gloved hand running over the displayed headlines proffered in a spinning rack just to her side. The silhouette of his hat disarmed whatever natural instinct she might have to pull the pram closer and give the stranger a dirty look, and by the time she finally had her purchase in hand, he was leaning over the pram, face obscured by both his hat and the pram’s own canopy. With indignation she reached out to smack him with the paper, blurting out her most venomous of obscene epithet, taking care even as she quickly pulled her son away from the man’s reach. But her entire body stilled when he glanced up; the world spinning and slipping around her as she felt her legs tremble with a ferocity they had not known since she received the call with the news of Bond’s demise. Familiar blue eyes met hers, piercing straight into her soul the way they always had, seeing past the walls and the hostility, making her feel stripped. Angry. Embarrassed. Like a young girl again. All the sudden her breath came out in a shaky stammer, her lungs stinging and desperate for the air she had unknowingly been depriving them of. She felt as though she was going to be sick, or perhaps she was just going mad, but there was no mistaking who stood before her. This was no cheap mimic. She would know him anywhere. At the handle of the pram, where she gripped so tightly her knuckles had begun to go ghost white, she let the paper float unabated to the ground, like fall’s last leaf, sweet and somber all at once.  She tried to speak, but her throat had gone dry, voice cracking and barely above a whisper as she spoke the only word that would come. The only one she seemed capable of remembering as she stared at the ghost that always haunted her dreams, looking entirely real here now in the light of day.

          ❛  How ? ❜

MEME.

SCANDAL.

               —— days have passed since her reappearance on his doorstep, wet hair clinging to ashen cheeks, weeks worth of paranoia having blurred the once-crystalline sheen of glacial eyes. whole days have passed, endless and strained, scarcely a handful of words shared between them in the last forty-eight hours .  .  . and for him, it’s uncharacteristic enough that she wonders seriously if she may have broken them beyond repair. it would hardly be something she could bring herself to hold against him. but she does hate the waiting — the clipped silences & concealed ire that she can sense bubbling just below his dutifully maintained facade. it’s not in her nature to do things this way ; inquisitive, hesitant fingers gingerly testing the edges of the metaphorical bruise to gauge how tender the flesh beneath may be, and how careful one must be in proceeding. she can’t stand the strangeness of their present arrangement. & so, in that familiar manner that she knows is not appropriate just yet, she’d sat beside him at the kitchen table, flicked the edge of the file laid out before him, some joking nonsense muttered close at his ear & watched as he momentarily abandoned his delicately crafted pretense & snapped at her as she well deserved. “don’t try it, katya.” 

               silence follows, blue eyes trained on his profile as he breathes in the expected steadying breath, shoulders falling, his hand raising to drag over his face before pinching the bridge of his nose. weariness clings to him like a second skin, pervading the very air between them with a kind of hopeless exhaustion that fills her with the blackest guilt she can remember feeling .  .  . and then he triples it with his continuance. 

                      “ don’t ever leave me like that again. i almost didn’t survive.”

               ask her if this is what she wanted for him, and the answer would have been a resounding, embittered “no.” it had never been her intention to ensnare him so unfairly, and even further from her mind had been the idea that she would become just as ( if not more so, ) incapable of envisioning a life without him present in some capacity. it was never her intention to need him or to be needed —— especially given her penchant for selfishness & destruction. he deserved better. the hand she’d left lying palm down on the tabletop moves with reticent care to cover his own, the crease between dark brows only deepening as eyes meet. she’s not one for words, usually. it tends to be quite a struggle for her to reveal anything with any real earnestness — a product of years of repression & even more years of lovelessness. a faint squeeze of his fingers is all that happens for a moment, & then lips part, mouth suddenly somewhat dry, but determined to salvage something, anything from the debris of the past month of her absence.