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The sun casts a golden haze around her as she walks away from him, making her look ethereal, a mirage in the parched desert of his soul. His mind is drawn back to cold, misty mornings and dimly lit rooms in basement flats. She walked away from him then too.
But this time it's different, he tells himself. This time she's invited him to follow.
It's the view I fell in love with.
He smiles as she stands with her face turned towards Oxford's spires in all their sunlit glory, entranced by the beauty around her yet completely unaware of how much she's adding to it. Not even Turner or Hayez could produce something quite as perfect as this. She turns to him and laughs.
You can't see from there.
She can't see what he sees.
Come closer.
No, this is as close as he gets, he tells her. He's afraid of heights.
Or is he more afraid of falling?
I'm not going to jump.
She is at the edge of the rooftop, leaning on the parapet, confident and unafraid. She has always been braver than him.
But braveness takes many forms.
And his steps always seem to lead to her.
He's standing closer to the edge than he's been in a long time. He grips the beer bottle in his hand a little tighter, feeling the cool glass against the warmth of his skin. His mind tells him he's too close, his heart whispers that if she can bear it, why can't he? He looks over at her as she takes in the Oxford skyline and he mentally traces the contours of her face, the smattering of freckles, the dark lashes, the strands of her hair catching the light. He imprints the image into his mind the way she is imprinted into his heart.
She turns to him then and her eyes meet his. A cacophony of silence hangs between them, threatening to die into words. For all the words that exist in his mind, the right ones continue to elude him. Do they elude her too?
There's someone I'd like you to meet.
The sunlight feels too bright, the beer feels icy cold. The words are innocent, the meaning is anything but. He learns her name is Claudine. She is a photographer. Pretty. French. He'll like her apparently. He wonders how that can be true when each new piece of information about her cuts into him like a shard of glass pressed into his skin.
You need looking after.
He's angry. Not at her. (Never at her.) He knew better than to stand at the edge. Heights are how people fall after all. Don't injuries follows falls as surely as night follows day? He's hurt and he's trying not to let it show, because she is brave and he is not and they both know it. He doesn't belong here, in these golden mists of unfulfilled dreams, he never did. He retreats back toward the stairs, because the light is too bright and the beer is too cold and the conversation is too painful.
You just got here.
I've always been here, is what he wants to tell her. But work is all the reason he gives her, that ever-reliable excuse of his. He wishes her well. A fresh start. One without him in it. It's the only thing he has left to give to her. And then he takes one last look at her, still sitting on the roof's edge, bathed in golden light, before he disappears into the comfort of his own enveloping darkness.