There’ve been too any words between us. Words leading to misunderstandings, miscommunications, hurt feelings. It’s better for now we leave them behind, I think.
We near the destination and the road begins to wind.
Even inside the car, the air seems different. Colder, yes, but fresher. There’s a trail of something that’s been draped in a vibrant seaweed, salty but not fishy. Like the first ever breath of life.
The car climbs higher and the steepness of the road pushes her back against her seat. Her head falls back and the moonlight, brightened by the fresh air somehow, bathes her skin with a luminescence that is so radiant I wish I could photograph it.
Winding, winding, winding.
The road becomes narrower as we climb. There’s nothing on either side. No trees to catch the car’s headlights, nothing to reflect the artificial light back on us, to give her a clue where we are.
And then out of nowhere, a gate. Just up ahead. I slow the car and drive up close. Press a button.
She doesn’t move, still watching straight ahead.
There’s a creak and metallic click. The gate opens and swings toward us. I wait for it to open completely before I drive up the cobblestone driveway, glancing in the rearview mirror, watching the gate close behind me.
There are trees now. Wild, unkempt, unkept trees. Branches swaying in the wind, rooted to the ground by their trunks, stopping them from fleeing to an adventure in the ferocious breeze. I park the car underneath one, its branches bare, reaching out into the night. With a turn of the switch, the car lights die, bathing us in a benevolent black.
We sit in silence again. This time little our eyes adjust to the dark. Slowly, the view forms in front of us. A short gray pebbled walkway leading up to a small cottage peeking out from behind the trees.
Pushing against the car door with my arm, I let myself out then jog to her side. I wait until she turns to smile at me through the window, then I pull her door open, helping her out. The wind whips her jacket open and she grabs the side and holds it tight around her body.
“Come.” I lead her, pressing gently on her back up the path. A soft light comes on as we near the front door.
I dig around in the orange terracotta pot next to the welcome mat and pull out a key. I slide it into the lock and turn it, pushing gently on the door and letting it swing open. The entire cottage lays open in front of us. No doors or walls, just furniture blocking the floor into different spaces.
A living area with two couches and a white sheepskin rug on the floor face the fireplace. A dining room table with eight chairs is set up in front of a large open kitchen. A four-poster bed is laid up against the far wall, facing a window that runs from ceiling to floor. Everything luxurious. Everything promising decadence, but function.
There’s a soft light inside and the fireplace is crackling, warming the cottage, and I know that my instructions have been followed.
“Where are we?” she finally asks.
“We’re…home.”
“Home?”
“This is…this is the first place I bought when I realized we had more money than we could ever spend. And I try to come here whenever I need to be alone.”
“It’s beautiful. Did you..?”
“Did I decorate it myself?”
“Yes. You have a good eye.”
“I had good advice.”
She wanders around, touching every surface. Smiling as she notices little figurines of musicians on the mantelpiece, and pictures of my family that she peruses one by one while rubbing her hands over the fireplace, warming them.
“Do you like it?”
“I…I love it.”
“I want to show you something.”
I point to a frame on the wall by the door and we walk toward it. It sits on a small shelf with an under light, and in the dark room, we can still see it.
She looks at it from afar, the whips her head around and stares at me. I just smile.
She moves right up close to it and peers at it from mere inches away.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“How…”
“How did I get it? I have all of them.”
“You do not.”
“I’ll prove it.”
I stroll over to the bed and pull an album out from the bottom drawer of the bedside table. I bring it over to the dining table and lay it on top of the heavy wooden slab, flipping it open to the front page.
It’s a scrapbook of all her articles, clipped from newspapers and magazines. The first page is the very first article she wrote for a national paper, a duplicate of the clipping on the wall. She flips through the album, periodically looking up just to stare at me, her mouth open, her eyes soft, glistening.
“I lied. I lied when I said that after I heard you were coming on tour I read some of your pieces. I’ve been following you for years,” I finally admit to her.
“Did you know I was going to be at the press conference that day?”
“No.”
“Are you glad I was?”
“More than I am for life itself.”
“Brad.”
“Sweet, sweet Emily.”
And then it’s like the elastic tying us to one another tires of being stretched, and retracts.
She springs up onto her toes and runs to me, and I catch her, her legs wrapping around my waist, her arms around my neck. Her lips on mine.
The kiss is desperate but tender. My mouth continues to devour hers even as I carry her to the bed. Laying her down, her legs refuse to let go of my waist and I fall, fall, fall, on top of her. Falling like I’ve been falling for her my entire life,
“Omfffff.” She lets out a soft grunt as our chests meet.
“Sorry, are you okay?”
“More okay than I ever have been. Now stop talking and kiss me.”
“You’re so bossy,” I tease her, taking a moment to wonder at her face.
“Yes I am, so there’s no point in arguing.”
I don’t dare, and instead lean down and our mouths meet again. This time gentle, playful. Her lips nipping at mine, her tongue running along my own, then disappearing back into her mouth, daring me to follow.
Somewhere in the play I lose my shirt, my pants, everything. Her nightie is torn away and soon it’s just her body and mine.
“I want to see you,” I tell her. I want a memory of this.