Love

Aug 04, 2008

She was in a dark place, dark and cold. Her fingernails were blue: she couldn’t see them, but she knew. Her nose was frozen, her eyes filled with tears. Just because it’s not black, doesn’t mean it’s white, she found herself thinking reassuringly to herself. Heaven knew there were enough shades of grey to keep you going for a lifetime.
She was alone, abandoned. A feeling of utter loneliness came over her. Polly wanted to sob, but thought bitterly about heroes, and raised her head upwards instead, trying to reverse the direction of her tears. She almost laughed at herself. Well, it was a way of not crying, after all. Laurel’s distorted way of thinking seemed to be rubbing off on her. She closed her eyes, and opened them again. Her vision seemed a bit clearer now.
Were those stars she could see, far away, in the bleak, desolate distance? Were they really little lights of hope?
All of a sudden, she wasn’t alone. A door opened somewhere behind her, in the darkness, silently, but she heard it. Instinctively, she knew who it was. And even worse, she found she couldn’t move. Not now, she thought desperately. Please, no.
He walked up to her, stopping some distance behind her. Polly did not move a single muscle. I’ve become a statue, she thought. I’ve frozen into coldness. He paused, and walked on, reaching her, placing a hand gently on her shoulder. A warm, heavy weight. Polly bit her lower lip in an effort to suppress the tearful sigh that escaped her lips anyway. He had no right, she thought fiercely. But her tears had begun to spill.
“You’re cold,” he said. Of all the things he could have said, this was what he chose to say. Polly wanted to chuckle in exasperation, but found her tongue had frozen too. He wasn’t expecting an answer from her, because he turned her round slowly, and pulled her against his chest.
It wasn’t an old anorak that was pressing against her cheek this time. The movement, his warmth, revived her. The coldness melted away. Her body regained some of its fluidity, the blood flowed again.
She clung to him and cried. Tom couldn’t tell which action was more desperate: the clinging or the crying.