“Ciara.”
His voice pulls me from my tears.
“Please don’t do this. Don’t push me away from you.”
I do not turn around, I let his words wrap themselves around me.
“I don’t demand that you love me and allow me to be with you, it’s just… don’t lock me out like this forever. Give me a chance, just one, to stand by you.”
I turn slowly and the sincerity in his eyes is hurtful to look at.
“Don’t you understand? I don’t want this. I don’t want you to settle for this,” I say, indicating myself with an open hand. “I want for you the best of everything because you deserve it, Aaron. I wish I could be the one to give that to you, I wish I were able…” my voice breaks and Aaron takes a step closer to me.
I freeze, conflicted between taking a step back and letting him touch me once again.
“May I?” he stretches out a hand. “May I hug you?”
And with that, the dyke gives way. The walls give way. The fear gives way. The fog lifts and my heart starts beating again, so strongly it could break on my ribs. I nod with my head, freeing my soul from the death grip the solitude had on me and the light coming off his eyes is so intense I have to shut mine.
He comes to me and caresses my shoulder.
There’s that shiver. I feel it.
He pulls me to him and wraps his arms around me. The moment my head makes contact with his chest he starts shaking and crying in silence.
His cries fill my heart and I hug him back and when he feels it, he whispers in my ear: “Now I can start living again.”
And I can too.
—
AARON
I pull her back and take her face in my hands. I dry her tears with my thumbs and smile sincerely because I have hope again and maybe all isn’t lost.
That we’re not done yet.
She smiles back at me, letting my hands touch her face, like I have a hundred times before, without pulling back.
And it feels like the first time to me, the first time that I’ve really touched her. I am so emotional my hands are trembling.
Ciara notices because after a few seconds, she places her hands over mine, squeezing gently.
Hope train coming through. All aboard.
I sigh, relieved and encouraged: Ciara is letting me get next to her and I swear that this would be enough for me, just to touch her and look at her without hurting her.
“You feel like taking a walk?” I ask her with anxiety.
She nods and breaks away from me.
We cross the street and go towards the pier, illuminated by lamp posts and the boats floating in the bay for the night. We walk side by side for a while without speaking and without looking at each other.
Then I ask her if she wants to go down to the beach where the low tide would allow us to walk on the wet sand. She agrees and we head down a little pathway that leads to a little sandy area with cliffs exposed by the sea and which will be inundated again at dawn’s first light.
We sit on a cliff where we take our shoes off to dig our toes in the sand. It’s fucking freezing. This is summer, but it feels as if it were winter tonight.
I get up and extend an arm in her direction, silently asking her to follow me, to trust me, to take my hand and take this life. I am proposing to her with my eyes, asking that she should live beside me.
