Beautiful Burn(38)

“That’s all?” I held her at arm’s length and looked into her dark irises. I sensed there was something more.

“I have to go back to school next week,” she finally admitted.

“Oh,” I sighed. “It’s that time?” I let her go and walked into the living room furnished with just one couch. The place was still so sparse, it looked like a college dorm. I suddenly found myself wanting to make a home with Auburn. Decorate it and spend holidays burning the turkey and laughing over lumpy mashed potatoes. I wanted it all, but knowing how far out of reach it was, how impossible it was to act on my love for her, felt like razor blades nicking my heart one slow slice at a time.

“What happens then?” She snapped me from my thoughts.

“I dunno.” I ran a palm through my hair and tugged on the thick threads before turning to her. “I have no idea. Let’s go to bed.” I opened my arm and she nodded, walking into it, before I escorted her down the gleaming wood planks of the hallway. I settled us in the fluffy mountains of white cotton and held her close, her leg wrapped around mine, an arm across my chest, her nose in my neck as she breathed me in.

“I like your hair longer,” she whispered.

“Thanks.” I settled further into her.

“How are things with Mel?” I could tell she hated to ask. Talking about it made the divorce real. I hated real. Real punched me in the gut and made me sick with anxiety. Real left me frozen without a definitive plan for anything. Fuck real. I wanted this. I wanted her.

“We’re…ya know.” I plucked at a frayed string on the comforter tossed haphazardly around us.

“Is that all?” She smiled, but her tone radiated sadness.

I couldn’t help the ironic quirk of my lips. I loved it when she made light of heavy situations, eased the tension. She had a gift. She was a gift. “It's the same as ever. She's mad. Kind of ragey whenever I try to talk to her.” I rubbed at the knot of tension forming in my neck. This summer had taken it's toll. I paused as I worked over what my life would look when Mel and I divorced. “Going through a divorce in this town where people gossip for a hobby sounds like another side of Hell. And I know Mel won't make it easy, she'll fan the flames if given the chance. I just keep waiting for her to calm down so we can have a conversation, but she's still pissed. I don't know why, it's not like she didn't see this coming, we were in therapy for over a year.” Relief flooded my muscles when I opened up to her. Auburn was my safe place, my comfort zone. Mel and I had had such a contentious relationship the last few years I'd grown accustomed to holding everything in without even realizing it.

“I’m sorry.” She soothed me with fingertips tracing lines up and down my forearm. “I don't think there's ever a right time for divorce. My parent's broke up when I was two, I don't even remember a time when they were together, but honestly, they're two different people. I think now, looking back on it, they made the right decision. It was the tough one, but it was the right one. You just have to do what's right for you.” Auburn's soft voice hung in the air around us. The size of her heart left me breathless. The scope of her empathy left me stunned. The depth of my love left me terrified.





sixteen


I woke Friday morning to the smell of fresh coffee. I floated my way down the hall in search of my favorite mug when I saw her placing a stack of pancakes on the table. “Morning.” An easy smile came to my face. I kissed her soft lips and was headed for the coffee pot when Auburn stopped and redirected me to sit at the table.

“I’ll get it.” Her warm palms trailed across my shoulder blades and soothed the early morning aches. A minute later she sat across from me, two coffee mugs in hand, passing me my favorite one, the CMU cup that I’d had since I was a freshman in college.

“Oh, forgot something!” She jumped out of her seat and sped to the fridge. She was back a second later.

“Peanut Butter?” A quizzical expression was I'm sure more than evident on my face.

“You should try it.” She slapped long swipes of peanut butter on the two pancakes on her plate.

“So…do you do syrup then too?” I passed her the bottle.

“Yup.” She took it from me and drizzled a healthy amount across her peanut butter pancakes.

“That looks disgusting.”

“Don’t knock it 'til you try it,” she said right before popping a forkful in her mouth.

“That’s a straight up kids meal.”

“Don’t shame me!” She laughed before taking another bite. I dug into my own syrup-soaked breakfast and we ate happily for a while.