Untitled Chapter Story

CH.1

She stood, looking at the frosty stars, on an equally frosty night. She sighed,
thinking about the twinkle of her lovers eyes, when they looked into hers.
Or used to.
These days she was more likely to get harsh words than loving,
more likely to be critisized than praised. She looked at the steam her breath made,
just for an instant, and thought about how its vanishing, mirrored that of the happiness in her life, at least where he was concered. She recalled a conversation recently, as her boot heels clicked a tattoo on the sidewalk. A time when she had gone to him for comfort and reassurance of his love for her, and was met with the now typical cynisism. He made statements about the difficulties of their relationship and how on paper, the odds were stacked against them.
"So many people would look at us from that black and white prespective, and wonder what the devil we are doing!"
She had replied along the lines of "If we really want something there is very little to really deter us from having it."
At which he told her to quit that spiritual bullshit. It struck her as a bad thing, that so young a relationship should be dissolusioned and cynical so soon.
She was approaching her front door, she could see her front steps, and instead of putting key to lock, she sat down in the cold. She lit a cigarette and took a long drag. She should call him, and tell him that the last thing she wants is to be with a man so easily made miserable?
Was she not loving?
Attentive?
Kind?
Why the negativity?
Why the critisim?
Sure, he was out of her league, in a few ways, but not in the area of love. There, she knew she had the upper hand. How, after all could a man who dosn't even like himself, love a woman like her?
She dug in her purse, looking for the phone. She found it and turned it over in her free hand, still smoking with the other.
Call or not call?
It wasn't, after all, as if she had done something to warrent his unhappiness with her. She had really tried. All she needed to hear were the words that had come so easily four short months ago, how happy he was, how much he loved and desired her. She looked at the face of the phone, telling her the lateness of the hour, and if she didn't hurry... He would honestly have something to critise her about.
Or at least to his mind.
She sighed and flicked the butt of her cigarette into her yard. She paused, realising what she had done, and shrugged. It was almost a perfect analogy of how she felt, like a kind of litter in his life. With striking clarity she knew, it was most likely doomed. But she couldn't EVER say that to him, the effects of a converstion like that were so wrapped up and around the two of them that nothing could be spoken of without the sky falling in. She took out her key, unlocked the door, and paused.

The phone was ringing in her hand...it was him.