Fourteen Hours

Fourteen hours and eleven minutes separated elation and anxiety.

Tangled together in bed this morning, limbs and sheets and hair twisted into a comfortable cocoon, Drew had leaned over her.

“Move in with me?”

Her eyebrows drew together for a brief instant before smoothing perfectly back into her creamy brow.  Bright eyes danced as she drew his lips down to her own, answering his question with a teasing kiss that quickly turned urgent.

“Going to the gym, babe!” Corrine yelled in the general direction of the bathroom, almost an hour later.  “I’ve got meetings all day, but I’ll see you around six.”

The door slammed before he had a chance to say he loved her.

Before he realized she had never really answered him.

Shampoo stung his eyes as he stared at the tiled wall, dispassionately analyzing what had seemed recklessly passionate moments before.

Fourteen hours and twelve minutes later, it was after six, and she still hadn’t returned.

Drew paced.

His small loft wasn’t built for pacing.  The view of the water and proximity to his favorite restaurants had meant more than square footage.  After all, a single guy didn’t take up much room, and he’d never been a dog person.

Back and forth and back and forth.

From the sliding balcony door to the stainless steel kitchen sink and back took less than twenty seconds.

He should have gone for a run after work, killed some time, cleared his mind.  His running shoes were by the closed door, always waiting to envelop his feet and take whatever beating he was willing to give them.

Back and forth.

Nervously, he picked up a framed photo of the two of them, taken on some ski trip with her friends.  She loved the candid shot, their foreheads touching, her eyes discovering the camera at the last moment, laughter spilling from her eyes before it reached the rest of her features.

Fourteen hours and thirteen minutes.

Unable to stop himself, he glanced down at his watch, the chrome face mocking him with its unmoving numbers.

Anxious eyes carried to the door, fading almost to grey each time he realized the knob hadn’t begun to twist open.

He forced himself to stop pacing and instead leaned his forehead against the wall of eastward facing windows, willing the rhythmic waves to lull him back to the serenity he had felt that morning, wrapped in her warmth, before he had said anything about their future.

The door opened.

He turned.

Relief washed over him the moment he saw her face, light sparkling the amber of her eyes into gold, richly telling him everything he needed to know. 

In seconds, he crossed from the windows to where she stood, offering her mouth to him with a sigh.

She danced away a moment later.  Another sigh.

“I can’t Drew.  I just can’t,” she finally answered.

Fourteen hours and twenty-one minutes after he had realized he was utterly, inescapably in love, he realized she wasn’t.

He discovered that sometimes eyes lied.

For those of you following Greta's story, I thought we could find out a little more about the new man in her life.  If you don't "know" Greta, you can catch up or take this as a stand-alone piece.

 

the prompt:

This week we’d like you to explore romantic heartbreak. For you fiction writers, here’s a chance to really delve into the psyche of your character. For you non-fiction folk, well, maybe it’s into your psyche you must delve. We all remember that first love, just like we all remember when our hearts broke for the first time.

Write a piece – 600 word limit – about the first heartbreak your character or you experienced.