7

penelope's diary

We dance in the light of the morning streaming through the pane glass windows. It feels like a movie when he takes my hand and pulls me into his chest. We glide across the unpolished floor a smile wiping over my face as light hits his soft face. Melodies and laughter fill the space all around us and in that moment we were happy.

Maybe even happier than we have been in a long time. Happier than ever.

Our hearts race and syncopate together to the rhythm of the melodies floating above our heads.

Hands around my waist keep me steady as he lifts me up and kisses my neck. I wish I could live in this frame forever.

Moments passed with a flicker of an eyelash.

I don't want to go back to a life without him even though it's inevitable. Young love dies and we've been warned that the good die young.

I guess you just have to hold onto it before the time runs out. I fall away into daydreams of what life would look like before we got older. What would it look like if we lasted? If we bought our first house together? Adopted a golden retriever and called her Charlie? Danced in the refrigerator light while we stumbled around to Elton John and getting wine drunk?

Waking up in the morning to the sweet smell of freshly brewed coffee and talking about the day before it was bound to start? Laying in his arms while he read me the classics he read when he was little? The sweet sound of his voice lulling me to sleep with tales of the people before.

What would we look like if we started a family? Would he kiss my bump and talk to it as if the baby were already here? Would he want a boy or a girl? Would he cry when I showed him my positive test?
Would he pick me up and spin me around until we both were dizzy?

Would he be afraid to hold the little masterpiece we made together or would he hold her little body tight and never let go? I wanted to lay in the wake of the birth while he lovingly kept his eye on her, smile unwavering while I rested watching from the bed. Watching him fall in love all over again.

I wanted it. I wanted it so badly it was physically painful to think that it never existed. That it was a figment of my imagination and that the moments we had now were fleeting. I wanted to own his heart forever and always. He had mine already and that was most painful of all.

I knew he was going to drop it and when he did I would surely shatter in the place he leaves it. There was no life outside of what we had right now. At the end of the summer, he was going to fly away on a plane. Leaving my heart at the gate for me to pick up in the place of his absence. The feeling will sink in that all I ever wanted was flying away.

I told myself over and over again to not get attached but you can't tell the heart what to do. She simply doesn't listen. I don't want to feel the longing that comes along with absence.

If only he could stay. That's all I ever could have wanted. Stay here. Be here. Don't leave without me. Don't drop my hand.

As the leaves turn from lush greens to scarlet reds and neon orange the feeling sinks in and it becomes unavoidable to think about. There is no preparation for what is about to come next.

Everything becomes more lonely and the color you once saw so vividly dulls. Realizing that everything I had is going to be gone.

So for now I hold onto what I can and experience every inch of him that I can discover.

That's living.

Notes: any thoughts? Predictions? This came out later then I wanted but I do have another beefy chapter for y'all that I'm editing:)