One shot, for the 'Paitence' challenge: 'Waiting for You'
Title: Waiting for You
Pairings: Peter/Claire (canon) Nathan/Heidi, Peter/Caitlyn (*ugh* sorry, but she’s just a prop) & Claire/Random guy (again, prop.)Rating: R rated (for canon) angst
Words: Around 6,000
Warnings: Canon Paire. Slightly strange style, the italic bits are glimpses of the future for a while and then it changes. Hope it makes sense. Apologies for any mistakes, it's not betaed.
Spoilers: I haven’t seen S3 yet, so nothing from there. AU in parts I guess.
I'm getting addicted to these prompts -love this comm x
Summary: Every night Claire waits for Peter to come to her window.
*
I wish I was unsure that he’d heard me.
That would make the waiting more bearable.
Just that sliver of a possibility that he was unaware that I was sitting here, every night in his t-shirt, on my windowsill.
But he knows. I feel it. He heard.
*
The party had been glamorous, as usual I suppose, because Nathan - no matter how much he has changed - never does anything by halves. Giant swathes of grey silky material hung from the tall ceiling, falling over us all like molten steel as we sipped champagne and spoke stiffly to strangers. The mayor of New York gave his speech and the word ‘heroes’ seem to grate unreasonably on my nerves.
Nathan wasn’t bothered by it. He was happy with the attention, he worked the cameras well, and I was part of that - but his arm around me as we smiled at the frequent flashes didn’t seem altogether false. I just felt strangely like I was watching it all from behind a pane of smoky glass; it all felt remote and kind of surreal that we had really Saved The World and could go on living now - with no apologies for what we were.
It scared me, but not because of anything like the role my blood would play in the science studies we all knew were coming. I just felt unnerved by the new peace, and I didn’t know why. But the minute I could duck away from the party I did, leaving my half finished champagne by a tall vase and lifting my blue strapless dress slightly at the hem so I could negotiate the marble stairs in my heels.
And then he was there, handsome in a dark suit, his hair short and Caitlin on his arm. He wasn’t looking at me, was busy giving a vague reply to a journalist over his shoulder as they made their getaway but I didn’t have any time or place to hide myself before he turned and saw me on the stairs.
His face froze, then dropped and I watched his eyes change as he looked at me. They were hard, at first - he was almost frowning for a moment. And then his eyebrows rose a little and his eyes widened and I think I saw him then, in that moment, really saw him for the first time. Not who he wants me to see, or who everyone else expects him to be. I saw him, and everything he means to me and I had to place one hand on the railing and the other on my stomach to steady myself.
“Claire.”
It was Caitlin that spoke, in that voice she used for me alone - the condescending tone not disguised by her thick accent.
“Hi.” I couldn’t think of anything to say, and I realised I wasn’t behaving normally so I stepped forward to greet them both with a kiss on their cheeks. Peter’s fingertips brushed my upper arm and I breathed in his cologne just before I stepped back and away.
His arm was still slightly outstretched towards me as he spoke.
“Are you leaving already?”
I had to nod - I was concentrating so hard on forcing a genuine looking smile that I couldn’t find words at first.
“Yeah, I’m a little tired.”
Caitlin smiled and nodded and I glanced away from Peter’s eyes as they tried to search mine. I forced my smile wider and stepped to the side of them. And because they hadn’t spoken, I volunteered a farewell.
“So, you enjoy the party.”
I felt stiff and formal, too formal for the easy and relaxed way I could be around Peter at home, at Nathan’s. It was different now - but then it was always different around Caitlyn.
I kept my head down as I passed and was so fixated on getting away that I didn’t see Peter’s hand reach out to me until I felt his fingers closing around my wrist.
“You sure you’re alright?”
I looked into his eyes, trying to keep my smile straight in the face of his concern. I nodded weakly, too conscious of his fingers on my skin.
“I’m fine. I’ll be fine.” I pulled away a little too roughly and so I offered some words back at him over my shoulder. “You guys have a good time.”
Caitlyn nodded but her eyes were concerned too and I turned to hurry away.
And that was the first night he did it.
“Claire. Are you sure you’re okay? I can come with you.”
I stopped in my tracks, almost slipping on the marble and .examined the strange echo in my mind. I touched a hand to my temple and then spun to look for Peter.
He was nearing the top of the stairs, talking with Caitlyn. I shook my head slightly but kept watching them. He didn’t turn back, but when I hea,/rd the voice again, I knew it was his.
“I’m sorry; I’m not trying to annoy you. You just seemed upset. Is there anything I can do?”
I kept looking up, watching them as they kept talking; arm in arm, reaching the top of the stairs, Peter’s other hand still on the rail. As he turned at the top and walked towards the room I’d just come from, he smiled at something Caitlyn said, and then he slid his glance to me. I felt my fingers drop slowly from my temple as his eyes bored into mine.
“I can come with you. If you want me to.”
My mouth dropped open a little, and my eyes flicked to Caitlyn, still talking, and oblivious of our communication. I had no idea how to answer him back but I just tried to form the words in my head.
“I’m fine. You stay at the party. I’m fine.”
I don’t know how I knew he heard me, but I did, it felt clear. And then his reply confirmed it.
“Liar. But I’ll stay. You call me if you need me.”
I frowned up at him, walking almost overhead now, their footsteps echoing on the hard floor. His eyes flickered over me and a slight smile tugged at his mouth and I knew it was for me. I smiled back, my first genuine one of the night, and then they were gone.
*
The waiting isn’t that hard. now. Even though I think he will never come, it doesn’t hurt me.
It’s enough to be able to wait for him. Just to admit to myself that I am waiting for him.
That I will wait.
For as long as that takes, even if that’s forever.
I still feel better, allowing myself to wait for him.
At night, in my room.
*
But from then on, he spoke to me like that fairly often.
Sometimes to share a private joke, when Nathan was boring us both with his constant speech rehearsals around the house over morning coffee, Peter would mimic him in his head - and consequently mine. Sometimes he would make a smart remark when my grandmother would try and talk me into taking her credit card shopping, or when Heidi would try and make me join in with the boys in whatever game they were playing.
I liked it, it made me feel like I wasn’t so out of place there in that mansion; like I wasn’t so far away from my real family and friends, and like I could bear it - living here in the city for the science tests, and to go to college. His voice in my head would calm me, soothe me, and I think he knew it. He’d sometimes just ask me if I wanted a coffee, or anything when he was out and at those times, I’d wonder if he even actually knew that he had said it in my head and not out loud.
But he never did it when Caitlyn was around. He seemed to shut off from me altogether then and it felt strange - I felt the absence of his warm voice sharply. When she was there, he was absorbed in her, focused and attentive. I would make myself scarce in those times, not wanting to see their intimacy, and not sure exactly why not.
*
The night feels paper thin, with the breeze so cold as it rustles the leaves outside and plays with my hair across my shoulders.
I hug my knees and stare at my toenails, painted candy pink and just visible peeking out from the hem of his t-shirt, pulled down as it is, over my bent legs.
I’ve given up peering into the yard in the night, just happy to sit on the wide windowsill.
I know he would see me tonight. The moon is full and I’m bathed in its light.
He would see me, waiting here.
*
Josh is sweet, quiet - bordering on shy which is unusual for a guy who is as good as he is at football. I sigh as I check my reflection in the hall mirror. The cheerleader, dating the football player. I’m such a damn cliché at times. I tuck my hair behind one ear and consider dying it dark.
My hand reaches for the front door knob but it turns before I can touch it.
It’s Peter, and Caitlyn.
And, Josh.
He stands behind them with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, and Caitlyn is smiling at him, deep in conversation. He’s smiling gamely, nodding at all the right times.
It’s not until Caitlyn turns to me that I notice Peter still has his back to Josh and the look on his face could only be described as a scowl.
I frown quickly at him and then focus my attention on Caitlyn.
“...never introduced us before, Claire! Josh, come in...”
I step over the threshold, trying to ignore Peter’s glare. I can feel him watching me closely, he doesn’t even take a step back to accommodate me on the doorstep and so I’m close enough to smell him and feel the warmth of his body and it’s distracting. I remember what I was going to say though.
“No, we’re just going actually.”
Josh moves back down the steps as if he agrees with me and I move through Peter and Caitlyn, though only Caitlyn steps back for me. I think I feel his breath on my ear as I pass and I really don’t know if it’s in my head or out loud when he speaks.
“Are you sure about this guy? When will you be home?”
Either way, I answer in my head.
“When I’m home. Why do you care?”
Josh opens the door for me and I step into his car, trying to offer him a smile as I do. I glance back up at the doorstep to see it empty and the door closed, but I still hear his answer anyway.
“I don’t know. But I do.”
*
I rush in and head straight for my bedroom. I don’t turn on the light while I strip off my jeans and t-shirt and chuck them on the chair. I dig my hands into the bottom drawer and pull the latest t-shirt I’ve managed to sneak out of the clean laundry.
I smile as I drag it over my head, because this is what I feel best in.
I brush my teeth in my bathroom, and drag a brush through my hair, walking to my window.
I lean against it, peering into the dark. There’s no moon tonight, and all I see are dark silhouettes of the yard, so familiar to me now.
I push the window open wide, breathing in the scents of the still night.
Then I crawl up onto the sill and dangle my legs outside.
I close my eyes and tip my head back, listening to the rustle of leaves.
And I see his face in memories from today.
But every night I wait for him seems to get easier, not harder. All I know now is that no one can take this away from me.
This thing that I do every night.
I wait again for him to come to my window.
*
Nathan and Heidi are entertaining, and I’m finally becoming used to that, and not feeling like the odd one out. I still don’t really feel like family but maybe that’s just normal. I laugh at the word in my head, smiling as I think there is pretty much nothing about this family - us - that is normal.
He confirms it with his words in my head.
“What’s funny?”
I don’t turn to look at him; I just close my eyes because I’ve come to love it, the unexpected sound of his voice.
“Us. We’re screwed up.”
It’s funny how even if I’m not looking at him, I can picture the expression on his face when he’s speaking.
“We are?”
I nod. “Yeah. We’re freaks. And yet we go on acting like normal, having parties, playing happy families. I think it would be less weird if we started walking around in spandex and capes.”
He laughs in my mind and it’s a nice sound. I see him then, standing by the ornamental fireplace and it’s with a jolt that I realise he’s right next to Caitlyn. I flinch at his hand on her arm, as I find myself doing more lately, but I quickly squash the feeling. I worry now that even though he seems to only hear my deliberate thoughts, some of my thinking has been treading close to jealousy lately. Over him, and her. At that candid thought, I realise then that we really are screwed up- or at least, I am.
I look over to the waiter balancing a tray full of flutes of champagne and immediately start weaving past people and through to him. At the corner of my vision, I see Peter drop his arm from Caitlyn’s as she talks intensely with someone I don’t recognise, and he turns and walks away from her.
I guess he’s on his way to see someone else, and so I head to the balcony, just to my right.
But as I take my first sip I hear his voice, clear as the cloudless night I’m looking out at now.
“Do you ever wonder if we did the right thing? Saving the world?”
I’m concentrating so hard on his voice that I barely catch when it turns from being in my head to just by my ear.
“I sometimes think it’s doomed either way.”
I whip my head around to look up at him.
He’s close, right there behind me, and glances down with an almost sad smile. The cynicism
of what he’s just said is so unlike him, I’m almost scared for a moment. I stare up at him as he looks out at the view of the city and answer him in my head without consciously deciding to.
“Why do you say that? Of course it was the right thing to do. Look at you - you’re so happy now. Aren’t you?” I trail off, having found that strangely difficult to say.
He looks down at me, considering. I realise that I’m either really quiet short, or he’s taller than I realised. He answers with his mind too, but he answers my questions with a question.
“Are you?”
I stare at him, my gaze falling to his lips. His body stiffens slightly, though I’m not sure if I’m imagining it.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” I look down at the ground.
He moves away from me then, over to the railing, and leans against it, folding his arms across his chest. I move to the railing too, a little way down from him and I speak aloud for the first time in our conversation.
“Why do you think we’re doomed? What do you mean?”
He draws his gaze from the ground and looks up at me, and his eyes are bleak. I try and offer a smile but I have to hold myself back from going to him, touching him.
“Just what you said. We’re screwed up, aren’t we.”
I hold his gaze until we’re both aware that we should look away.
Then he pushes off the railing and walks away without another word.
*
It’s getting colder at nights.
I still refuse to wear more than his t-shirts but I have to wrap a blanket around myself to sit near the open window now.
The latest t-shirt I snatched was from the pool house, and he’d been wearing it for the morning, before his swim. He looked for it for all of a minute before shrugging and walking off towards the room he shares with Caitlyn. It’s almost funny how I’ve allowed myself to take his t-shirts and not admit what that means, but I still kept my gaze steadily away from his bare chest when he walked past me in the kitchen.
I bring my knees up to my chin as I take up position on the windowsill, finally tilting my head down and pulling the neck of the t-shirt up and over my nose.
I breathe him in deeply, and it almost makes me cry.
Then I rest my head back against the window frame, to wait.
*
From the road, the house looks silent and watchful.
But I hear murmurs as I pad up the cold stone steps, carrying my heels in one hand and I know that someone is still awake.
Sure enough, Nathan and Heidi are up, sipping aged port and I sit down for a glass with them that I probably won’t touch. Nathan laughs that I didn’t make it through the night with my new Manolo Blanick heels and I shrug that off, pulling my feet up onto the chair to rub them. Heidi jumps to my defence, explaining that good heels have nothing to do with comfort and I just smile and nod in the right places and try not to wonder if Peter is home. She carries on, a few ports in I suppose, asking about my night, and Josh.
I shrug and tell them the truth, that he’s lovely. He is kind, thoughtful, considerate - even in bed, though of course I leave that out. But he really is everything I could want.
If my desires were rational.
The front door closes and I hear sharp heels clicking across the front hall, and then disappearing. My stomach flips slowly, knowing he’s home, but I tell myself he won’t be coming in to see us.
But then a dark head peers around the door frame and Nathan jumps up to drag him into the room and place a drink in his hand. I avoid his eyes when he glances at me across the rim of his glass and I become very involved in my fingernails all of a sudden.
“Claire’s been on a hot date.”
I just stop myself from cringing at Heidi’s words, and muster up a game smile instead.
“Hardly.” I feel like I’m betraying Josh when I say that but I can’t help myself.
Peter’s eyes follow me as I half stand to offer my glass to Heidi who’s topping it up. He doesn’t speak, and Nathan changes the subject, so I figure I won’t hear anything from him.
Then, as I sit there watching the realistic but artificial modern gas fire, his voice almost startles me, it’s so loud in my head.
“So, how is your boyfriend. I hope you know what you’re doing there, Claire.”
I can’t help it; I turn and frown at him. He looks at the fire too; his forehead is creased into a frown. Luckily, both Nathan and Heidi are either drunk or distracted enough not to notice. I still feel a little like we’re passing notes in class though, and when I answer in my head, it’s like a whisper.
“What do you mean by that? And what the hell is your problem anyway?”
Nathan laughs loudly then and I jump - the fright compounded by the loud sigh I hear in my head from Peter. He talks aloud to the two of them for so long that I think I’m not going to get an answer.
Finally, when Heidi has gone to sit in Nathan’s lap and they’re talking contentedly, their foreheads pressed together; Peter answers.
“I don’t know, Claire. Forget I said that. I’m sorry.”
I catch his eye, and it’s like the night of the last party - neither one of us looks away.
He takes a long drink and places his glass carefully on a side table; all without looking away.
When he stands up, Nathan complains but he brushes him off, claiming tiredness. Heidi asks after Caitlyn and he pleads the same for her but his lips press together in a tension I think only I notice.
He says goodnight and turns without a backwards glance but he has one more thing to say to me.
“You look beautiful, by the way.”
I close my eyes and bite my lip, hearing every step he takes away from me.
And then I decide. It’s easier, when he’s not in the room, but it’s still everything I’ve fought so hard not to say that the words feel torn from me.
“Come to my window. I’ll be waiting for you. For as long as it takes, till you come to me.”
I hear nothing back.
*
I wish I was unsure that he’d heard me. That would make the waiting more bearable.
Just that sliver of a possibility that he was unaware that I was sitting here, every night in his t-shirt, on my windowsill.
But he knows. I feel it. He heard.
*
We don’t speak with our minds anymore.
I don’t mind. I can wait.
It’s been a year since the last time I heard his voice in my head, and the last thing he said
to me like that was that I looked beautiful. Then I said what I said and I haven’t heard him
since.
He doesn’t act any differently towards me - not at least to everyone else. I’m positive they don’t see the change, but I do.
His absence from my mind is the difference, and I know what it means.
I continue to wait.
Biding my time over the months, every one of those awful months where I had to watch the break up between him and Caitlyn without any obvious impatience -even when I had to hear Heidi and my grandmother’s speculation on what was happening with them. Even when Heidi would tell us Caitlyn’s thoughts and feelings on it that I could hardly bear - how she was certain Peter just needed time and how much she wanted to start a family with him. I hated hearing all of that but I waited it out, knowing she would be gone and eventually she was.
I’ve waited through seasons; birthdays and parties and college all falling past in one long blur because the only time I feel alive is when I get home and go to my room, change into one of his t-shirts and open my window to wait. In the colder months I kept it closed, but I sat there, in my place on the windowsill. Even when it snowed over Christmas, I would sit by the glass, watching the flakes fall and gather in the corners of the frames on the outside.
And I’ve never once wondered if he knows that I wait. I just know that he does.
We don’t share any long glances. No looks or touches that anyone would notice. Everything is normal between us.
But I’m sure. He knows I’m there, and that every night I wait.
*
Tonight is different. I don’t know how I know.
I hurry straight for my bedroom once I get in the door. I never turn on the light anymore, not wanting to waste precious moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness outside. I watch the yard outside as I pull off my jeans and t-shirt and lay them on the chair.
I scan the familiar scene slowly, once, before ducking quickly to the bathroom to brush my teeth and my hair and drag on his t-shirt.
When I reach the window, I lean against it, peering into the night. There’s no moon out and it’s pitch black outside.
I grasp the latch, pushing it up to open the window. It’s stuck, and I look at it, jostling the handle which I’ve never had trouble with before.
Then I stop, and turn slowly back.
He’s there, outside. Watching my hand, motionless now on the latch.
I study his face, close on the other side of the glass. He still doesn’t look at me, still keeps his eyes on my hand. I try to push the latch up again, and he shakes his head slightly.
I drop my hand from it altogether, knowing that he doesn’t need me to help if he wants to open the window. And so I just watch him, his face wooden but something about him still manages to look shattered.
I bring my fingers up to the glass and trace his features. He stays still a moment longer and then brings his hands to the window frame, still carefully avoiding looking at my face. I just keep watching him until he rests his forehead against the glass, closing his eyes.
I stare at him a bit longer and then turn my head and press my cheek to the window. With my eyes closed I can almost pretend that the glass isn’t there and I’m resting on his chest as I would be if it was to disappear.
But it doesn’t. And when I lift my head again, I see that he has.
I stare out the window a bit longer, before going to the bed and curling into a ball, stretching his t-shirt over my legs.
*
The next night he comes, the window is already open.
I feel that he’s there for more than an hour before he appears on the window sill.
He just sits there, legs on the outside, staring out at the night. I’m happy to watch him, from the bed, curled up into a ball up by my pillows. Even though he doesn’t speak and doesn’t move any closer, I’m content because I can stare at him - just like I can’t during the day, in the kitchen over breakfast or at night when Nathan calls us into his study to have a drink with him.
His hair is longer now, and I like it. It’s more like it was the first night I met him.
He doesn’t make a sound when he leaves. I fall asleep with the window open.
*
The next time, the same thing happens. And again, for weeks. It doesn’t bother me. In fact, it slowly becomes the moment that I’m living for.
But one night, I move to the end of the bed and sit there. He doesn’t flinch, and so the next night I simply walk from there to take his hand and lead him across to my bed.
He doesn’t resist, though it feels as if he doesn’t have any ability to anyway.
I sit him next to me on the edge of the bed. He leans forward and rests his head in his hands with his elbows on his thighs, his fingers splayed through his dark hair. We sit like that for some time until he rubs his face with one hand and I lean my head on his shoulder, tired. After another ten minutes, he finds my hand and squeezes it once and then he’s gone.
But now he comes straight in every time, to sit on the bed with me.
*
Nathan worries after me and it’s kind of sweet. He’s overly protective with all the testing, because they want more and more blood, to the point where I feel like a pin cushion sometimes but I truly don’t mind. He mentions college in Paris and I let myself think of that sometimes, but all I manage to come up with in my imaginings is me by a sash window with a view of the Eiffel Tower, waiting.
Heidi worries that Josh doesn’t come around anymore and if I’m really upset about not seeing him. I sometimes pretend to her that I am, because in an ideal world, I would be. I should be.
Peter is protective and hates the lab testing - for me more than him. He spends his days at the hospital, not officially working, but visiting more than anything, and often the children’s wards. He gives away more money than he earns and Nathan balks at that but I know that he is just happy that Peter continues to stay in his home.
But I think maybe only I see the pain in his eyes that gets worse every day. And I don’t know if I can make it go away or if I am the cause.
*
He is slightly drunk when I get home late one night from giving blood again.
Nathan has been called away on business and Heidi is upstairs somewhere and it instantly worries me that he’s in the kitchen, drinking by himself. I wish for a moment he still spoke to me with his thoughts so I knew what was up but instead I say nothing and go straight up to bed.
He’s there, an hour later. And this time when he comes over to the bed, I just lift the blanket and he crawls in beside me.
He turns on his back, staring at the ceiling and I watch him, lying on my side. When I realise tears are running down his face from the corner of his eye, I can’t endure it anymore.
“What? Peter, what’s happened?”
He flinches visibly at my voice in his brain and I wait, holding very still. After a while he brings his hands up to press his palms on his forehead.
“We lost one of the kids at the hospital.”
I wait for a while. Then I find his hand and hold it, rubbing my thumb against his skin. The urge to move close and hold him is so strong; I close my eyes to block it out.
I don’t know who sleeps first but when I wake in the morning, he’s gone.
*
One night, he doesn’t come.
I sit on the windowsill for a while before I give in and crawl back to bed, hugging myself into a ball and trying not to miss him.
Then I wake some time later and I know something is different.
He’s there next to me in my bed, on his side facing me. It’s dark and I can barely make out his face but I know somehow that he’s been there a while.
I don’t move, getting the strangest feeling that I’m going to scare him off.
Then he brings his hand up and runs his thumb across my forehead, brushing back a curl and tucking it behind my ear. I feel a sharp thrill run through me at his touch but I fight to stay still.
His voice is quiet and low in my head.
“Claire. I don’t know how to live with my conscience.”
I close my eyes, and then shake my head, feeling for and finding his hand. I feel his body tense and pull back a little and I close my fingers around his tightly, willing him not to pull away.
“Over time. Because this isn’t going to change, Peter. Ever.”
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t even breathe from what I can tell. Then he shifts slightly deeper into the mattress and I take this as a good sign. I whisper my thoughts to him again.
“You belong here, with me.”
I grasp his hand gently with both of mine and then bring it to my mouth and press my lips against each of his knuckles in turn. He draws in a sharp breath and tenses again and so I repeat it. Finally his fingers unfold to run along my jaw, and then further, into my hair.
I can’t see him very well but I feel him change, I realise his surrender.
I melt against him as he grips me close and his lips are softer and his mouth and tongue hotter than I’d even expected. But nothing has ever felt as right as this. We curve into each other and I can’t help but think of Paris, and a window waiting for us there.
*
Nobody really knows where Peter goes. He tells them he needs to travel the world, and Nathan is disappointed but he’s nothing if not resilient and so he accepts it.
Me, I have to have the whole big farewell. Flowers and cards wishing me a good trip and gushing promises to email. I bear up through it because I know it’s necessary - to make them all feel better.
My Dad and Mom, they’re pleased for me - that I’ll get to see the world. My Dad in particular is happy I’ll be away from the constant testing but he doesn’t know they’re going to continue it in Paris anyway.
I don’t care. It’s all a means to an end.
When I walk into the apartment Nathan has found for me, I barely notice the modern furnishings, or the flowers placed in a vase on the table for my arrival. I walk straight to the window.
It’s large and lets in a lot of light, and I almost laugh that I do have a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. I look out over the vast city and wonder what the view will be like at night.
I sit there on the windowsill, staring out at the view, moving only twice in the next hour to answer my phone and assure my Mom I got here okay, and to pour myself a glass of wine. When it starts to grow dark, I find the stereo and turn it on quietly, then strip my clothes off on the way to the shower. By the time I’m dressed in his t-shirt and I’ve refilled my glass, it’s dark, and I tilt my head up to learn the view of the stars from this part of the world.
Then the latch on the window slowly moves upwards and I watch it, feeling my last threads of anxiety whistle away with the movement. I put my glass down and hug my knees, watching him step quietly down from the sill.
He moves towards me slowly and I drop my legs to dangle from the ledge. He steps forward and in between them, and I put my arms around him and press my lips into his hair.
He grasps me desperately close, and I whisper everything in his head, everything he thinks he doesn’t want to hear. I don’t care, I can convince him now, that this is best. This is the only way for us.
When his breath speeds up and his kisses get more urgent, I wrap my thighs around his waist tightly, and he lifts me off the window and through the small apartment to my room.
He sits on the bed and I straddle his lap while he lifts my arms gently and takes his t-shirt up and off me. He offers his first smile at that, and I know he still thinks it’s funny - that little obsession of mine.
We push the rest of our clothes out of the way until we’re naked alone together, and I tell him that nothing feels right when I’m not with him.
He kisses my collarbone and insists I still don’t know what’s best for me but I tell him to wait. Over time, he’ll find out. Nothing will change.
He looks into my eyes and I remember the night I sold him on this.
“I don’t care what they think or say. What do they know about this, Peter? They don’t know how we feel.”
He’d twisted my hair around one of his fingers, and drawn me closer with his other arm.
“Please. Take me away from here.”
He’d just shook his head and murmured how he loved me into my hair.
Now we’re here, and safe - even safer than he could make us in New York. And yet still he comes to my window. I don’t know if he’ll ever stop that but I’m happy to wait. Even if it’s not until we outlive everyone around us.
For as long as it takes, we'll wait.
*