Sugar Shadows

Frosted Glass

They started out as sugar roses. Sugar crafted beautiful to catch the sun, pulled sugar masterpieces to glow like gold over fabulous cakes and desserts. Plain solid sugar masterpieces carefully shaped in molds without the slightest crease.
Beautiful and pure. Just like Josephine. Just like Josephine used to be.
Josephine was never supposed to be a part of his life, just a coincidental meet in the packing section of the local SaveMart. No one keeps the acquaintances they run into at SaveMart. But Alex did. Destroying ten dollars of bubble wrap like giddy school children turned into a coffee date. A coffee date turned into a walk in the park. And a walk in the park took them to Alexander's House of Fine Arts, a sugared house of baked perfection.
She'd loved it. To say the least, she was ecstatic about the idea of sugar sculptures, and insisted they make some together.
And so they did.
Alexander's careful pianist hands showed Josephine the art of tempering sugar; the way to pull it and shape it pretty, the way to create a beautiful mess that can crown a cake.
And slowly, the two made a landscape of colors, delving into the colorings and shaping masterpiece after master piece until rows of roses gleamed back at the two. Delicate and fragile.
Josephine's roses were perfect. Just like her.
Over the months that followed, Alexander developed a strong friendship with her, and formed a strong means of affection. One he couldn't quite place.
But Alexander had never noticed how pretty hair was in the late sun, how it's dark color turned liquid in the beams. He'd never appreciated how deep and smooth brown eyes could be. He'd never appreciated someone's freckles before in his entire life. And he'd certainly never felt the way he had about a simple brush of the shoulders. But here it was.
So the next time he went to get coffee with Josephine he made sure to be a gentleman. He opened doors, he paid for her coffee (black, like her soul she'd like to say) and initiated polite conversation. Josephine didn't seem to notice.
He gave her small sugar sculptures from the bakery and taught her morse code to convey messages in secret. Yet Josephine remained oblivious to the slightest idea that Alexander was harboring feelings for her.
Alexander was not one to give up. Over a year had passed since he'd met Josephine on that fateful day in the packing section, and Josephine didn't say a word about Alexander's stature. Until he brought her back to the bakery per routine to make sugar sculptures for the next days.
Since roses, they'd moved on to creating complex sculptures of koi fish, entire gardens, and any crazy decorations brought to mind.
It wasn't until Alexander began the corkscrew ribbons for a particularly largely tiered cake that Josephine tapped out a short message along the steel workstation of the table.

../ .-.. ...- ./ -.-- --- ..-

Alexander paused, not able to believe it when Josephine looked up at him, blushing.

"I think."
And this is it, he thought that's going to do it. Here we are, and we'll be here forever.

So he kissed her there, tipping her chin to meet his, a beautiful silhouette in the late sunlight, surrounded by crowns of iridescent sugar glass. A sweet kiss that tasted of sugar and just black coffee, because that was the way she liked it.

A nerdish confession that turned Alexander's knees to jelly.

That was the turning point to falling in love. And in the 0.03 seconds it takes to fall in love, Alexander developed the seal around his heart that locked him to Josephine, the deal with fate that would break him.