Can we...?

6th date. The very same restaurant in which they had first met.

She looked over at him, through the busy Saturday hum and the luminescent light that fell from above, delineating the boundaries of the tight diner’s room. Across the table; sturdy and covered by a simple cloth of white and blue. He seemed confident tonight. Nice. Pleasant. Slowly saying some words that disappeared into the distance, like an echo. She leaned forward, looking to lock her attention in his green eyes. But they wandered, down towards his plate- nigh empty now, except some smudges to the sides.

Cautiously, she checked her watch: 8:45. Instinctively, she knew they’d be at his place by ten.

Perhaps she’d spend the night this time. Undecided, left to her own devices. Yet, her unsurety had always bent towards him in the end.

When they’d first met, after some hesitation, she had agreed to go on a date with him. And yet, after he had walked her to her crammed apartment in a formless, grey building not far from the city center, she found herself no less hesitant than before. There was an attraction, but he seemed so incredibly…

“... What’d you think?” he said, loudly. Words rippling the candlelight between them.

“I…” She stumbled, lightly stuttering. Trying to connect, in the suddenness, what he might have said before. “I’m… I’m not sure.”

She saw as his eyes drooped down towards the floor. His fingers, stately and long, like a pianist’s, fidgeting on the table dynamically. Sitting in a crude silence, before he looked up:

“Oh, I was just talking about this new accounting firm.” He paused, as she searched within her memory. “They’ve given me an interview…”

“Well…” Weighing her words indecisively, she began. “I think you should go for it.”

“Yeah… Yeah…” He chuckled. “They’re probably gonna give me a better salary. But their dental plan…” He shook his head.

“What does James think?” She quipped, remembering the name of their one shared acquaintance.

He nodded, enthusiastically. “He’s gone to work there. Says he’s never been at a better firm before;” A light quiver passed his face, as if it was brushed by the wind.

“So…” She started, traversing the space between his brows and trying to understand what he had waiting within his mind.

“I think I’ll do it.” He smiled and tapped the table. “I can’t believe it but, I’m actually going to do it”

She smiled and grasped his hand. Hot and pulsating, like she’d never felt before.

“You should!” She exhaled, through their shared radiance.

He stood up, and, looked at her. Glowing.

“Alright I’ll go to the toilet real quick…” he paused.  “My place after?” Somehow similarly excited, as if it had been the first time he asked.

She nodded and saw something so boyishly enthusiastic as he nodded back. This seemed right. Everything had turned out to be alright.

---

They burrowed under the covers, trapped in the heat from one another. Laying on his back, feeling her presence next to him, he felt a sense of completeness. He didn’t want to get up, yet there was a cold dryness in his mouth that seemed to gnaw at him. Until finally, he turned over and up onto the bed side:

“I think I’ll go get some water.” He said, as she turned her head towards him through the cool shade of the bedroom. “You want some?”

“Sure.” She said, lightly.

And, turning somberly to open the door, he pictured her greyish eyes; the jet-black hair that fell across her neck and the light rise of her brows as she spoke.

This was a dream, he thought, stepping silently across the living room and towards the sink. Taking two plain glasses from the upper cupboard and placing them carefully under the falling water. It trickled down, gargling and whooshing, filling with white, foamy bubbles at the sides.

Cautiously, he observed the still calmness that surrounded him. His eyes drifted toward the window in front of him. A perfect view of the city skyline. Boundless and filled with the neon-lights of skyscrapers or the occasional flicker of a satellite in the smokey sky.

He’d always found it magnificent, ever since he had seen it for the first time as a scruffy university student. Yet in that moment, he could not but yearn to be away from it all: from the hum of the machines; the dust of the streets and the constant motion of this world that surrounded him. Somewhere like his parents summer cottage. Standing, serene and unmoving, next to a solitary mountain river stream that meandered into the valley and glittered in the morning sun.

I want to bring her there, he thought. It struck him now with a sudden clarity.

I want to bring her there; he repeated in his head. Although he hadn’t told them about her last time. When he’d arrived in the back of a black cab from the near-by train-station followed by the cooling rays of September.

It wasn’t that he was embarrassed. It had just been confusing. After all, they had met merely by a coincidence which neither of them could have planned. Yet, in this moment, he was certain that maybe…

He shook his head. It was too early. Only three months, which had passed by like a whirlwind. A timeless substance that stretched and condensed itself at will, leaving nothing but a blurry memory behind89.

What was it about her? He asked himself. Struggling to find an answer that fit. Was he sure? Looking ahead into the distance, he could see the glimmer on her finger, but was that it?

No. He shook his head vigorously, as a dog that had just gotten wet. No, this was not the time to think. There was tomorrow and then the many days, months and years ahead.

Carefully, he took the two cups in his hand.

 ---

She could see his silhouette through the half-open door. Leaning in front of the sink, looking out into the distance. Her eyes moving aimlessly across the spotless, ceramic floor between them.

I want to be around him, she thought, trying to etch this fact into her skin. But her bones seemed blocked by the indescribable fear that one feels standing atop a cliff and looking down into the abyss bellow.

In the distance, she observed him walking back, slowly nudging the door open. Tracing his broad shoulders, which carefully masked the slouch of his spine, she could not but feel lost in this range of plans, and changes that stretched forward in time.

He reached out to her, with the glass in his hand. She grasped its cold surface between her fingers, feeling his face move closer to hers. In seconds, their lips touched. Like a small explosion, when molecules collide.

She felt his surface through the darkness, eyes half-shut to the world that surrounds. Thoughts traveling at the speed of light into distant galaxies.

Finally, they beheld each other. For a moment, stuck in this eternal now.

“Do you want to stay over tonight?” He asked

“Yes, I think I do.” She said. Knowing, that it was true. And at that moment, nothing else should matter.