Lighthouse

Anne slept with his shirt between her cheek and the pillow. She was afraid she would sap it dry of his smell before they next met... that it would wear away... and she would have nothing left of him but soft, gray cotton.

On his shoulders were tawny freckles that matched the color of his eyes. She pressed her nose against his flecked skin and looked up at his face.

They stayed up all night talking. She folded her arms and rested her cheek on the island in his kitchen and he complained, "Now I will only think of your face when I look at this counter. The kitchen will be incomplete without it."

The first time he kissed her was on a climbing escalator.

She had trouble catching her breath.

The weight of their distance was unbearable in her chest. Her heart ached and gaped cavernous. She closed her eyes and trembled to remember his warmth. It was not hard to recall, and its absence clawed at her until she thought she could not stand under such duress.

She would bite his nose and kiss his eyes and touch his exceptional cheeks with the tips of her fingers.

She would stay awake and caress him into comfortable sleep. Absorb, like Mrs. Ramsay, his pains and his weak knees, making him whole again.

He reformed Anne to her original best self. Slowly, as she was enveloped in his love, the trappings of latest rebellion dropped like scales from her body. He remembered her back to life. And to a new life that dazzled and shimmered with nuance and hope. It stretched out long before her in the least laborious of ways, twisting and spinning into joyous action. His light reflected brilliantly in her undulating waves until they were almost painful to gaze upon.

"Come kiss me..." he sighed.

And she was coming.