Work Text:
Stagnant.
Unchanging.
Fastened.
This is what our relationship is like. We circle around and around each other, doing this dance. I put one foot forward, get burned, and so quickly retreat to the safety of previous steps.
A hand motion here, a glance heavy with meaning there. These are the things I cling to. The simple gestures that I read into, desperately hoping I’m not the only one still dancing.
I know all of these steps by heart; I’ve been doing this dance for so long. Smile and pretend he’s just family. Ignore my racing heart at family dinners. Don’t stare at his long fingers or the collarbone I want to mark. Steal the feeling of skin on skin when walking by. And never, ever, kiss him.
I did that once. I was high on adrenaline and the thin air of riding on a dragon. And hormone charged, I was fourteen and not thinking. He’d taken me to Uncle Charlie’s work, just like when he was fourteen. We were going home the next day and all I knew was that I didn’t want our time here to end.
Teddy had pushed me off of him and held my shoulders so I didn’t run away. He might be a bookish person, but he was still stronger then my still-growing self. He had looked at me for so long I thought he had forgotten how to speak. And then he said just two words. Two words that have bounced around my head for the past seven years. “Not yet.”
And so I play at this dance, wandering what he feels on that other side of the table. If those glances and hand motions I cling to are anything at all. Am I looking for something that’s not even there? I am stuck here, thinking that years have passed and I’ve moved forward. But I don’t think we have. He’s still looking at me like he did that day in Romania.
All I can think is this: If not yet, when?