Romance In A Column

chapter thirteen,

While staring at the woman through her peripheral, Eryn could tell Deniz Gürsel's war strategy entailed bloodshed.

Because sitting, with a leg daintily placed atop of the other and finger intertwined atop of her lap, Deniz is the personification of a scarlet—a hand who had just torn out a hand and now it's infected by the color of what literature often implies to be it's singular function, love in an everlasting way which would slowly rotten it's muscles, and this drenched palm now wraps around her throat quite like the neck of the women's red long sleeve. She is, too, shades of coal; like the soil under her feet feeding off, soaking the casualties of war—just as Deniz's unruly mane does with the droplets of rain her umbrella couldn't deviate.

This evening, Deniz Gürsel is a somber painting thought of as a historical relic.

And perhaps, the atmosphere of sadistic humor brung upon by an upcoming battle which she radiated, had been what had warned both Eryn and Wren from engaging in any sort of conversation beyond the polite, and socially required, niceties.

Eryn, for a change, had little to no trouble in remaining quiet. Wither her chin dipped down and in her monotone attire, she could feel the mist that is embarrassment polluted with dread settle around her like fog atop of dampened grass and slate gravestones.

Truthfully, her anxious state had little to no relation with what they are to face in a matter of steps and is all about Wren Allen, in his undeniably attractive—which, to her, rhymes with exquisitely unattainable—existence which convoluted her thoughts since Callan James hinted at the possibility of a unlabeled something between them; an emotion, a relationship, or nothing at all with the undertone of late nights and dim lights.

A part of her would like to dismiss the entire conversation, and would love to be spared from the insentan stream of images her brain conjures of Wren's broad hand skimming up the back of her thigh. Long fingers slipping underneath the satin of the black dress the depths of her closet has held hostage for months, as she hitches her smooth leg to his waist while he presses Eryn against a wall—his short intakes and exhales of breath fanning her erratic heartbeat in the dip of her throat.

But alas the knowledge that, as of right now, the ball is completely in her court dissuades her against materializing the steamy fantasy—alongside anything beyond platonic with Wren Allen.

It may have been the unrequited love to the first person Eryn had stuck some semblance of a bond with, in high school. A boy who was tattered earphones gone hidden by a mop of hair he—much to his mother's dismay—was reluctant to trim, and inky lines written in the expanse of his pale arms he hoped would one day become permanent, prevailing and steady through time, unlike most things in his life.

An afternoon which would have constituted as average in their friendship, spent in the skate park—his prefered hangout spot—with her denim-clad legs folded underneath herself while they toasted on cokes and a meat lovers pizza, while sharing a pair of earphones, that they had passed their freshman biology exam.

But once the sky began to resemble the color of his hair, which Eryn was guilty to musing under the guise of friendship, and the stars pecked his cheek already dotted by constellations, Eryn voiced in a tone low and gravely—similar to the sound emitted by the wheels of his board crunching with the sidewalk—she had something as innocent and juvenile as a crush on him.

It seemed, he hadn't loved the sound of declarations and professions as he did the rumble of his skate cruising through the streets of their dead ended hometown.

Melina would blame it all Eryn's alleged first love. A boy with eyes like the whiskey he laced his coffee with, before every class and smiles which could lead people astray.