Impossibilities

"Come here to me," Aidan said and pulled her onto his lap.

* * *

In a high-backed, red velveteen chair Anne sipped her vodka desperately and tried to think of things to say. He clutched the neck of his beer and furrowed his brow at a destination past her shoulder. His knee shook in nervous compulsion.

* * *

They passed a furtive bottle of white wine back and forth on the subway. She liked riding next to him and fingered his sleeve and he called her "Tugboat." Anne folded her hands back in her lap but smiled nevertheless.

They raced aimlessly through Port Authority.

"This way!" he exclaimed and grabbed her wrist. Somehow they were on a bus. The correct bus? They wedged between strangers, as close to each other as twinned popsicles. She giggled on his shoulder and he said, "We fit so perfectly together."

Again, they raced aimlessly through the deserted streets of Hoboken.

In a club. In the back of a drummer's van. Ducking under the turnstile of a train station. Finally in the refuge of a pizza parlor. They had forgotten to eat dinner and ravenously split five slices of cheese.

"I love you."

* * *

"Are you two married? Your children would be very beautiful."

Haloed by stained glass, an elderly Irish gentlemen sipped his Jameson neat in an obscure 2nd Avenue pub. Anne and Aidan felt close under his preening eye.

* * *

As quickly as fingers are snapped, Aidan turned cold. He lashed an icy tongue in jealousy. At something he had seen in Andy's eyes. At the way Anne had turned her head at the bar and let Andy kiss her cheek.

She quietly ran her fingers across his back and waited for him to forgive her. And need her.

His affection was a varied, flickering flame, but soon her collarbone was back beneath his hands because he couldn't live without her.

"My love. Tell me you've never loved anyone like you love me?"

* * *

She promised nothing and pretended to sleep. Over and over again, he said her name into her neck and hair. Then he was gone.

Still, together they could only be covered in snow...