Thank you all for continuing to read this story, I will try and post chapters more frequently as I work towards the conclusion.
Your ongoing feedback, ideas and thoughts are always appreciated. Jm08nyc@yahoo.com.
CHAPTER TEN
For a moment I let my eyes fall closed. And for a moment I let myself be transported back in time. It could have been a year ago, or two. The same players; the same scene. But with him approaching, handing me a cup of coffee as he slipped his arm around my waist and kissed me on the cheek. A quiet "good morning" as he slid back to the stove to finish making breakfast.
The two of us. Breakfast. Bliss.
I shook my head. And banished the thought.
That was then. This is now.
Eyes wide open.
I slipped into a chair at the table, sitting across from him. Silent. Observing. Taking in every detail of his face, his clothes. A person I had known so well, so intimately. The nose, the mouth, the lips. Features I had memorized. I had kissed. I had loved. I had pressed against my own.
His hands lay on the table, palms down. He still wore the ring on his right hand; the pair we had picked up in a vintage store in a back alley in Johannesburg a year or so ago. I didn't need to glance at my own hand to know that mine wasn't there.
I had taken it off nine months ago. I had left it sitting on the counter in the bathroom of the house on Rue Charlot the entire summer I was away. And it was there, waiting for me when I returned in the fall. It sat there to this day. Of everything that Sophie has touched, or cleaned, or polished in the house, that one item remains fixed. Like a constant point in time that can't be revisited, can't be changed.
His mouth open. Words starting to come out. I needed to focus. The first few phrases all I could hear was his voice; his accent. The one that had wooed me on the plane that first time we met. The one that had comforted me in my lowest points. The one that I heard first every morning and last every night for years. I wasn't listening to the words he was saying. I was just taking him in.
Every ounce of him. As if the nine months we were apart were a hundred thousand years and I was looking through a dark glass at a ghost from another era.
Focus. Focus! FOCUS!
I concentrated not on the voice, but on the words.
"...when I got to the house yesterday and found only Sophie there, I knew there would only be one place you'd go to. It was late, but I hit the road right away and must have arrived this morning right after you left for your run. I've been sitting here awhile...you didn't change the locks."
Silence. Him waiting for me. Me, not sure what to say.
I had, of course, thought about what this might be like. Would I cry? Shout? Throw things?
I felt like I had already done all of those things; especially as I filled the notebook, sitting in the red chair, in our...my... bedroom on Rue Charlot. Was there anything left to say? Or do?
I remained quiet.
"Well, you look good... I like the longer hair, it's a nice change," he said softly looking down at the backs of his hands, his warm, oh-so-English voice hitting me across the table. "Sophie mentioned that you spent the summer down here. The house looks amazing—who ever would've thought. I knew you always had a vision, but..."
He trailed off. Not sure of what to do next, I suppose.
I watched him get up from the table, and, for a moment, tensed thinking he might try to come close to me. To touch me. To embrace me. Instead he walked toward the desk in the corner, and leaned down to look at a painting that was leaning there on the tabletop against the wall. One of his.
It was a small painting, one he had done for me just after we had gotten together and not long before we'd bought the house in the south. He had done it during a trip we had taken one weekend. So small, so fine. Just pale, brown paint on a canvas. Me. Laying in the grass, eyes closed, asleep.
The painting had moved around over the years. It had always held a special place in my heart. For years it had hung in the library here in the south, a reminder every I reached for a book of him and us. When I had come down to the south in May. Abandoning Paris after Cooper had...left...and working on the house in the south I had moved the painting. But, not wanting to get rid of it...not being...ready?...to get rid of it I had left it here on the desk.
He started, "...you didn't...you kept it." He was facing away from me and I could hear a soft sob.
This had to end.
"Cooper," I started... not sure really where the strength or words came from, "Cooper, I think you should leave. I..."
I lost it was what happened. Lost my voice and my ability to carry on. I just looked down at the table.
I could feel him approach; the heat from his body radiating next to me. Mere inches. The man who for so long shared every moment of my life, every night in my bed. The man who I haven't seen or spoken to in nine months. The man who had taken my heart and who had thrown it away.
"I know," I heard him say. As if from a distant place. Quietly. Laced with melancholy. "I'm going to spend the night in town. There's a room available at the hotel. I want you to know that I read the notebook. Every page. I want you to know that I haven't forgiven myself for what I've done to you. And, what I've done to us. I know—and I read it in your words as well—that we were the best thing I've ever had, ever experienced, ever wanted, ever dreamed."
I kept my eyes cast down. Willing myself not to cry. Keeping the closest thing I could to a poker face on, despite my crumbling interior.
He continued, "I'm going to be down a the hotel through the weekend. I don't anticipate you coming to look for me, but I will be there if you do. And, I can't leave without saying this, which I hope will not hurt you—I love you. More than anything in my life, the good and the bad, more than my triumphs and my failures. There's always you—you transformed my life. And I love you for that, and for you who you are. And while I may have lost that love from you, I've learned from my mistake, and I will never take that love for granted again."
Breathe. Deep. Breaths.
Don't cry. Do. Not. Cry. Don't.
I heard him walk away. Slip through the door, it swing shut behind him.
I put my head down on the table. Fuck. Me.
I lay in bed looking up at the rafters in the bedroom, remembering the work that went into sanding them, finishing them, perfecting the imperfect.
I had been here since Cooper left. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't do much.
The hours had passed. The sun had set. And I remained. As had become the routine of the last nine months.
Alone. In the dark.
Sometime after two am I awoke with a start. I had finally drifted off—it must've been about midnight—a fitful, unhappy sleep. One that I couldn't return to now.
I climbed out of bed and slowly made my way down the stairs. Wandering in the darkness.
I fished my phone out of the drawer in the hall table, where I had stashed it the evening before. I scrolled through my missed calls, missed texts, missed life.
Thomas. Sophie. Thomas. Thomas. Stephanie. Daniel. Mom. Stephanie. Sophie. Dad. Daniel. Thomas.
Fucking Christ. I shoved it back in the drawer. I can't deal with any of them right now.
I made my way to the couch in the living room without turning on any lights. I laid down and pulled a blanket over my head. Counting myself back to sleep and hoping it would be a dreamless one.
I could feel the sun beating down, warming me through the blanket—I pulled the blanket down just enough that I could make out the clock on the table across the room. Blinking in the bright sunlight, allowing my eyes to focus. 9:33am.
And, unexpectedly, as I dragged myself off the couch, I actually didn't feel half-bad. I stretched long, arching my back, my hands reach for the ceiling as every muscle in my body came to life.
Maybe the sleep was cathartic. Maybe the sun was a tonic. Something was different though. It had been twenty-four hours since I had seen Cooper. And the time had come to do something about it.
In the bathroom we had once shared, under the eaves of the house in the south, I showered. Music pounding through the houses speakers fueled the energy that had seemed to come from nowhere upon waking.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Head. Chest. Legs.
Cock. Balls. Ass.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I let the water sink into every pore over every inch of my skin.
I let the music take over as I showered. The beat moving my legs. The shower becoming my own personal stage. The shampoo bottle my microphone. The steam my audience.
I jammed. Laughing to myself. It had been awhile since I had felt this good.
The momentary feeling of calm and relief that had come after writing my thoughts down in the notebook had been replaced the last few days by a sense of dread, and, since seeing Cooper yesterday, by a sense of loss. But, with the new day, I felt the potential for a new beginning.
It wouldn't be easy. But it would mine.
His. Ours.
Fuck.
I shook my head. What would they think?
Thomas. Daniel. Stephanie. Mom. Dad. Sophie.
Everyone who cared. Who had comforted me in their own ways over the last nine months as I had despaired and fallen and picked myself back-up.
What would they say?
But, as I stood there in the bathroom, dripping water all over the stone floor as I looked myself in the eyes in the foggy mirror, I knew there was only one course of action.
Only one thing to do.
And, now, clean, and resolved. I would do it.
TO BE CONTINUED.