She sat alone in her room, on the comfortable seat nestled into the bay window.
It was still quiet and calm outside, a whisper of wind blew a few stray dried leaves along the pavement, through the morning dew that hadn’t yet settled.
A man was riding a bicycle down the side-walk, stopping at every letterbox to deliver the pamphlets he had stacked in the basket behind him.
She watched, a cup of coffee in hand, as the world outside began to stir.
Cars and vans trundled down the road, stopping here and there.
Women collected newspapers from the front steps of their homes, men brought bags of rubbish out to their bins. Children awoke from sleep, crying for attention. Cats stretched, arching their backs, to settle themselves onto window sills in the morning sun and dogs barked as timers set sprinklers off in back yards.
Everyone outside was waking up to this new day, yet she hadn’t slept at all.
She had tried, but sleep eluded her.
Instead of sleeping she was reliving the moments of the night before.
The way he had looked at her.
The feeling of his hand as it grazed her own, and then his fingers intertwined with hers.
Thinking about those first exciting moments of contact had her heart racing, she gripped the cup a little more tightly.
Was it a bad thing, she wondered, that she couldn’t even really remember the conversation? Instead of facts, she remembered glances, and moments where eye contact couldn’t be maintained.
Sitting at the table, close was not close enough. She was distracted by his proximity, the distance only serving to heighten the anticipation.
She couldn’t recall exactly what she had eaten for dinner, the names had all been in French, so she had randomly selected the fifth dish on the menu, hoping that it would taste better than the way she pronounced it.
The wine was perfection, deeply red, in large glasses that never seemed to be empty.
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When they had both finished their meals they decided to go for a walk, hand in hand down the jetty. People were enjoying parties on yachts, lit up with what seemed like a million fairy lights.
The fairy lights strung onto the yachts mirrored the night sky above. Twinkling above, twinkling beside, twinkling reflected off the ocean below.
She felt like she was dreaming, the feeling was too surreal.
They sat at the end of the jetty and talked more, less about their day-to-day, and more about their secret hopes. She blushed as he described what he wanted his future to include, knowing that she wanted to be a centre point in his plan.
They had worked together for years, he told her how he wished he had had the courage to take her out sooner, she admitted the same.
Somehow all of the awkwardness she had feared just didn’t eventuate, like all of their meaningless chatter of the previous years had combined to create the perfect basis for a deeper relationship.
They shared a taxi and when they were at her house he asked the taxi driver to wait so that he could walk her to her front door.
Holding one of her hands in his, he asked her if they could have dinner again sometime, soon. After she said yes she turned to unlock her front door but he stopped her and cradled her head in his hands. He kissed her gently and she felt herself melt.
It was better than she thought it would be.
Now, as she looked out from her window, she noticed that the world seemed to be turning and functioning as usual.
She was surprised.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
You know something is well written if a picture clearly forms in your head while you’re reading it, and I was definitely visualising your story!
Thanks for sharing x
Kelly HTandT recently posted..Thankful for Birth Choices
Thanks so much Kelly!
The Surprise Beginning recently posted..She Conquered