Talon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
talonkarrde) wrote2011-03-22 09:00 pm
talonkarrde) wrote2011-03-22 09:00 pm
Entry tags:
Jetsam
It’s a dream, he thinks. It has to be.
Because this — this beach around them — is something that never happened. It was a writing exercise, one where the two of them traded turns writing paragraphs in a love story, one that never got finished. But here it is, the veranda twinkling behind them, the full moon overhead lessening their shadows...
And the two of them, here, now, on the beach.
He’s in the tuxedo he remembered writing the character into, with the jacket draped over his right shoulder, his bow tie untied and draped around his neck. Her heels are dangling from her right hand, her hair cascading down around her shoulders, and the satin dress she’s wearing almost fades into the darkness of the ocean.
“What—” is this place, he starts to ask, but she just shakes her head and leads him on, across the beach, across the surf, until they reach the low pier. She pulls him down and shushes him when he tries to ask again, waiting until they’re both comfortable, the water swirling around their feet, before she speaks.
“Do you remember how we met?” she asks, looking up at him now, their faces barely apart. This close to him, he remembers the first time he kissed her — he remembers asking her if he could, because he was that nervous, because he couldn’t read the signs... and because he wanted to, so badly, that he had to ask.
And he remembers her smiling and saying yes.
“Sure,” he responds. “It was at a forensics tournament,” And from there, he almost launches into the story of their mutual friend, and the casual knowledge they had of each other before meeting, and how they were both interested in writing and...
“No, silly,” she says, laughing. It’s at him, something that should always have bothered him, but never did — maybe because he knew there was never any malice in it, unlike the rest of the world.
“I meant us,” she continues, and he finally realizes that she’s talking about them — this set of them, here, on this beach.
“We met here, a year ago. You were wearing a red tank top and a maroon skirt, and I was wearing a hawaiian shirt and shorts, and you were walking down the beach, and I told you I was looking for inspiration.”
“And I said, ‘Oh, so you’re a writer,” she finishes, with exactly the right emphasis on writer to make it sound like a puppy who had just spotted a new ball to play with.
“You know all of this,” he — the real him — says. “Why are you asking me?”
“Because I want to know how it ends, of course,” she says, very matter-of-factly. “I want you to finish it.”
And here he pauses, not because he was written to pause, but because he doesn’t know if it's possible. So he dodges, the best way he knows how.
“It wasn’t our story, you know. It was a story of people that vaguely resembled us, people that were bits and pieces of us that were drifting on a current far from who we would be, what we would become. It was an alternate universe—“
And she cuts through it all, already leaping ahead to what his point was, as she always did.
“Filled with us, or at least, versions of us that were easy enough to put to paper without thought. It starts on a beach, wanders through a museum, and misses a trip to Europe because she has responsibilities to other things now. How does it end?”
"With philosophy, and with romance, with attraction and companionship and the love of two people who both read," he whispers, tilting his head down to hers.
And then, a moment later, just before their lips touch, with just enough time to dispell the dreams, the hopes, and the memories, he finishes the thought.
"Make sure, love, that he reads."
Because this — this beach around them — is something that never happened. It was a writing exercise, one where the two of them traded turns writing paragraphs in a love story, one that never got finished. But here it is, the veranda twinkling behind them, the full moon overhead lessening their shadows...
And the two of them, here, now, on the beach.
He’s in the tuxedo he remembered writing the character into, with the jacket draped over his right shoulder, his bow tie untied and draped around his neck. Her heels are dangling from her right hand, her hair cascading down around her shoulders, and the satin dress she’s wearing almost fades into the darkness of the ocean.
“What—” is this place, he starts to ask, but she just shakes her head and leads him on, across the beach, across the surf, until they reach the low pier. She pulls him down and shushes him when he tries to ask again, waiting until they’re both comfortable, the water swirling around their feet, before she speaks.
“Do you remember how we met?” she asks, looking up at him now, their faces barely apart. This close to him, he remembers the first time he kissed her — he remembers asking her if he could, because he was that nervous, because he couldn’t read the signs... and because he wanted to, so badly, that he had to ask.
And he remembers her smiling and saying yes.
“Sure,” he responds. “It was at a forensics tournament,” And from there, he almost launches into the story of their mutual friend, and the casual knowledge they had of each other before meeting, and how they were both interested in writing and...
“No, silly,” she says, laughing. It’s at him, something that should always have bothered him, but never did — maybe because he knew there was never any malice in it, unlike the rest of the world.
“I meant us,” she continues, and he finally realizes that she’s talking about them — this set of them, here, on this beach.
“We met here, a year ago. You were wearing a red tank top and a maroon skirt, and I was wearing a hawaiian shirt and shorts, and you were walking down the beach, and I told you I was looking for inspiration.”
“And I said, ‘Oh, so you’re a writer,” she finishes, with exactly the right emphasis on writer to make it sound like a puppy who had just spotted a new ball to play with.
“You know all of this,” he — the real him — says. “Why are you asking me?”
“Because I want to know how it ends, of course,” she says, very matter-of-factly. “I want you to finish it.”
And here he pauses, not because he was written to pause, but because he doesn’t know if it's possible. So he dodges, the best way he knows how.
“It wasn’t our story, you know. It was a story of people that vaguely resembled us, people that were bits and pieces of us that were drifting on a current far from who we would be, what we would become. It was an alternate universe—“
And she cuts through it all, already leaping ahead to what his point was, as she always did.
“Filled with us, or at least, versions of us that were easy enough to put to paper without thought. It starts on a beach, wanders through a museum, and misses a trip to Europe because she has responsibilities to other things now. How does it end?”
"With philosophy, and with romance, with attraction and companionship and the love of two people who both read," he whispers, tilting his head down to hers.
And then, a moment later, just before their lips touch, with just enough time to dispell the dreams, the hopes, and the memories, he finishes the thought.
"Make sure, love, that he reads."
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Meanwhile, you totally made me think of a happy memory I have of the first time I kissed a particular someone. Thank you :)
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