Burn

So this is just a little bit of bcakground for Together I've been toying with. If you havent already read Together, read this first and chuck us a comment!

Four months, twelve days.

And I still burn alone.

Burn with anger, desolation, grief. White hot anger shoots through me on random intervals at my own pathetic attachment to the past. Why am I still here, waiting? Lying in these sheets, our sheets. I used to get excited, feel lucky to be between these sheets with him. And now? The cotton seemed harsh and uninviting even as I lay on it.

It is my own thoughts that are most maddening though. They remain always, like a badly scratched record, skipping then repeating over and over and over. Through them I can almost see a statement of my reality, 'You have lost the only person you ever loved, because they didn't want you', but my foolish denial refuses to let it through. Sometimes, just briefly through the protective skin of my still painful but less abrasive thoughts, when I see that reality, the pain is so unbearable I can hardly breathe. It doesn't let me cry, or release it in any way. Rather it catches me like a small rabbit in headlights, and burns me alive.

Burn.

Day and night blur together in the almost intolerable heat of a Roman summer, but right now, I'd say it is nearly noon and I rise automatically, dress in a daze, and end up outside the apartment, I cannot remember how. In the square, full of vendors and slightly distracting noise, a young man stops to talk to me. I suppose he would be good looking and I'm at a loss as to what he sees in me, I can't even remember the last time I showered. We, or rather he, hold a polite conversation for five or so minutes before I feign an excuse and wander away. The truth is I have no purpose for being out here, it's just that, sometimes I like to go to the places we went when we were still together,

When he still loved me.

_______________________________________________

I burn alone, with anger, jealousy, relief.

Atop a balcony overlooking the square I can see her, not her face, but I know how she walks and my eyes follow her so intently I swear she would be able to feel them on her.

Anger. At my stupidity. What had I been thinking? I was a f*****g mess. What I was, no, what i had been was the reason for all this. It was on me. I took the jobs, i became what I was. Then when it came to Altria, I couldn't. And that's when they came after us, she was high profile, I was high profile in my low profile world, and it all turned to s**t before we could blink. I would always regret that, but I regretted this more - I was going crazy wondering if she was safe, happy. Leaving had not been the way to insure she was, when I hadn't been able to watch her, pull her close when I wanted to. Regret hit me hard in the chest and I gripped the steel railing until it was painful, breathing the hot air in through my nose.

Jealousy. Men were talking to her in the street, talking about her, watching her as she walked. Had she been talking to them? She'd talked to that young man just then, although she left quickly. Had they been kissing her? Or worse, f*****g her? I inhaled harshly, tightening my grip on the railing.

Had she moved on?

Then there was relief. She was alive. She was not hurt as far as I could tell. And I was back in Rome now, where I could see her. But a closer inspection was needed I thought to myself. I was almost nervous. I had left the thing I loved more than anything, would readily die for, alone. What she must have been through, what she must have thought...

Had she been able to sleep at night? I hadn't. But much, much more importantly,

Would she ever forgive me?

______________________________________

After I left the man in the square I wandered around aimlessly for hours. I drank a bottle of red wine under the shade of a tree and did some shopping, just for the essentials. As the sun sank just that bit lower in the sky, I headed back to the apartment.

______________________________________

I'd already been through the apartment, checking on things. Well, truthfully, seeing if someone was living here with my girl. If she was still my girl. We'd have to see, I sure as hell wouldn't let her go without a fight.

Where was she? I situated myself in a seat by the window twisting my key impatiently around my finger. Being back here brought back a lot of memories. Foremost in my mind, its 'christening'. We did it to every place we moved into, and there were a few. It was an unspoken ritual that the first few days would be like a honeymoon, we'd just f**k on every surface possible in the place. And it would be hard to forget this chair, I can almost still smell her hair from when she was wound around me in it. The slamming door snapped me out of my thoughts and I sat up in anticipation...