She has loved him in every world. In every life. So many eras, so many realms. He always finds her. And when he takes too long for her liking – she finds him and gives him a piece of her mind. Along with every other piece of her.
And when she doesn’t find him in this one… well, it’s not the first time. And it wouldn’t break her quite so much, if she knew it would be the last.
And yet. There’s this one beach… its pebbles, barely more than a dull grey in the daylight, turn a startling blue when sunset approaches, when the sea has embraced and abandoned them all day long. She collects a jar. But it’s as if being imprisoned like that sucks the colour out of them. So she leaves them where they are. And visits them every time the sun gets sleepy. She worships them and the only place she can find that colour in this lifetime.
She doesn’t find him and he doesn’t find her.
And yet. When she soars through the air, she feels his fingers in her hair, she feels them run through the tangles there. Again and again, and again, with the infinite patience only he possesses. With the infinite time he gifts her. And she would know that touch anywhere. And she would cherish it even as it dissolves every time she makes her descend.
She stops looking after awhile. After years… many years.
And yet. Her head whips around sometimes. At a bell’s carefree chuckle over a diner’s door. At the rush of old pages, turned by the wind as if by an invisible hand. At the crash of waves over the base of her cabin. She turns and she wishes she hadn’t. Could’ve pretended it was him just a second longer.
She never does get to sink into his welcoming embrace. Never gets to share that ‘first’ kiss.
And yet. Just occasionally, the sand is rough on her palms almost the way his fingers are. And the sun slips over her ear, down her cheek, along her jaw and spills over her lips, warming them almost like his do.
She doesn’t find him.
And yet. She does.
And Yet…
Published
It All Starts With a Dance 