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Chiara has gotten to know Ethan.
She knows that. She doesn’t think so, she knows she knows Ethan.
She knows his silence, too.
And the ride home was silent. Watching Ethan from the corner of her eye, she recognized the mask he was wearing – seemingly stoic, concerned at most. There was a thunder in his eyes, though, blue irises a shade darker and screaming rage. He was angry – with himself, with Leland, with the situation he has found himself in or with life in general, she was not sure.
The dinner was silent, too. Heavy, serious silence only interrupted by the clinking of their cutlery – not uncomfortable, though. He needed the silence and she respected that and in that, they found comfort.
„Will you-„ he gulped after they finished the meal. „Could you stay the night?“
She nodded, of course, and Ethan didn’t say anything else, hugging her quickly (quickly, but oh so tightly. So tenderly) in a response.
Two years ago, Chiara would call him grumpy. Rude, perhaps. But she has gotten to know Ethan.
They couldn’t be more different when it comes to dealing with difficult situations if they tried. Chiara needs to talk it through – talk and analyze, share her worries with someone. When Ethan is not there to listen, she talks to Bryce or she calls her mom. Ethan deals with his problems on his own, within the safety of his own mind and only when he comes to his own conlusion, he considers sharing them with someone.
The bedroom is poured in silence, too. The bedside table’s lamp flooding the room with warm light, shadows lazily dancing on a wall opposite of the bed Chiara is currently occupying. Back comfortably resting against the headboard, book in her hand and she looks so peaceful when Ethan steps into the room, dark grey pajama pants hanging low on his hips, few forgotten water drops hiding in his chest hair. He stops in his tracks and part of him hopes Chiara doesn’t notice him so that he can observe without being interrupted.
Of course she notices.
(Of course she does. She sees him even when he doesn’t want to be seen. She sees him always.)
A smile welcomes him. Smile warm, soft and brilliant (like Chiara herself) and she waves her hand lightly, beckoning him to join her in bed – and one could think that she is wordlessly telling him come here, you can talk to me; that she is convicing him to trust her and talk to her.
But Ethan has gotten to know Chiara, too.
He knows that she is wordlessly telling him come here, lay down, I am here.
I am here and that’s all we need for now.
She doesn’t persuade him to talk, because she respects him. Because if there is something they have both been feeling to each other for years now, it’s respect.
Chiara’s attention is back on the book in her hand by the time Ethan crosses the room and slumps on the bed next to her, but her arm stays stretched out, still beckoning him to come closer, to find his comfort with her.
And he does find it. The moment he puts his head on her stomach, one of his hands curling around her thigh, he feels some of the tension that has been building in his temples dissolve.
More silence, less heavy, less serious, but just as comfortable and Chiara tangles her free hand into Ethan’s hair, soft and still damp from the shower, delicate, silky curls forming at the nape of his neck-
(and God, how much does she love those curls, subtle and only there for a while; only seen by a few, soft curls like his soft side, precious and hers to love now)
-and she strokes them gently, massages his scalp occasionally. He keeps on caressing her thigh with his thumb, his hot breath (a little bit ragged still, she notices) tickling her skin in the most pleasant way possible.
There is still no talking, just more content silence, rustling of Chiara’s book and Ethan’s quick, shallow breaths getting deeper, slower, calmer.
„I don’t know what is going to happen, Chiara,“ he whispers after two chapters,
„None of us ever really does,“ she chuckles softly, closing the book. „That’s the magic of being alive, isn’t it? We never really know what happens next.“
„I don’t believe in magic, to be honest.“
That earns him a wholehearted laugh from Chiara, the first loud sound of all evening.
„Well then, you will have to believe in me and in what I am saying,“ she chrips and even though she cannot see Ethan’s face, she thinks he is smiling, too.
(He is.)
Taking a deep breath - not ragged anymore – Ethan feels the scent of Chiara –body lotion (white tea and citruses), faint remnants of her perfume and then her, her natural scent, sweet and oceanic and so Chiara-like – ground him, calm him down better than any whiskey he would be drinking now, hasn’t she been here.
(The secret smile never seen by anyone – only there when he thinks of Chiara and Chiara only. Hidden from the world, hidden from Chiara herself, only known by the inanimate objects that witness his intimate musing.)
By no means could he call himself an artist. A poet.
No, he is a man, an ordinary, always rational human with minimal care for poetry.
Yet, how could he only adress her as a woman?
(His woman, no less, but still a woman. No, no, she is more than that.)
As his partner or something juevinile as girlfriend? Even the love of his life is an understatement.
She is –
Everything.
All he ever longed for and never allowed himself to believe in.
Everything.
- the first ray of light creeping through the darkness the North Pole suffers through for those 179 days of polar night.
Not the blinding kind of light. Not the one he needs to cover his eyes from, not the one he needsto adjust to.
His life has been a polar night, the dark not dark enough to swallow him (to end him) rather the creeping dusk that makes his chest tighten, makes the lump in the throat bigger and bigger until it can be felt behind his ears and it suffocates him (not enough to end him, no), makes him choke-
-until the first ray of a midnight sun breaks through and there are 186 days of light and nothing but light, warm and welcoming and wondrous.
Chiara Ray was his very personal midnight sun.
And if almost four decades of his life were 179 days, then he could only hope those 186 daysof light (warm and welcoming and wondrous) she could guarantee him would be enough to lastuntil his own last breath.
(And hope he did)