Jeffrey could hear the muffled, monotonous drone of the old man’s television through the wall of his cave-like room. He thought about Mona. It was hard to force himself to believe much in love anymore, but from what he could remember, he must have been in love with her.
If only he hadn’t given her all those blankets. No moment would pass that he didn’t regret the day they’d climbed up onto the hill together. They held hands and stared at the stars, hoping to find some insight into their relative destinies. He didn’t even know why he’d thought the stars would answer their questions. If he’d stopped to think about it, it would have been obvious that they couldn’t be trusted; it could be that they had already burnt out and nobody would know for another million years that the light they saw had no source.
He bestowed the blankets on her, piling them one after the other until there could be no doubt that she was warm. He refused to take any. He stared at her face as she stared at the heavens, and shivered uncontrollably as the heat of the day disappeared into them. She turned to him, then, and frowned into his smitten eyes, not saying anything. He smiled in return, standing and slowly peeling the shirt from his body to place on the top of the pile.
She threw off the blankets and left him at that point.
No comments:
Post a Comment