Eventually

He lay there on the couch staring at the ceiling, or what he could make of it in the darkness. There was only one small beam of light that infiltrated the room from the window he had thrown black paint on and missed a spot. The heavy wooden beams on his head barely lit up and the distance between him and the ceiling seemed to be increasing with every passing day. The fucking couch was sagging. He should have gotten a new one instead of picking it out of some ones trash.

He rubbed his hand on the coarse gray fabric underneath him. It was supposed to be white. But time tends to tear things apart, change their appearance, and make them something you never thought they could be when you first laid your eyes on them. He was not a depressive maniac. He was merely a realist.

Damn, why had he missed that spot on the window? It bothered him now. He liked the dark. He could not explain why though.

Outside, he could hear the wind as it swept through the unkempt fields. It almost irritated him a little right now. He liked it at night when everything shone silver under the moonlight. When he could stand on the roof of the god forsaken house, and stare at the lake in the distance, and it all seemed so serene. So unchanged. So much like it always had been.

"You're becoming a vampire", he heard her voice penetrate through his thoughts. He did not bother to look up. Her feet clattered against the hard wooden floor as she made her way from the door to the front of the couch. She was smiling; he could make that much out. He watched as she raised her right arm and pulled on the chain that fell from the ceiling. Click. Nothing happened. Click; she pulled again.

"You need to change the bulb", she said

"I took it out”, he answered.

He heard her sigh as she made her way towards the window and just stood by it.

That was how he knew her now; standing in front of the window and staring in to the black paint. That was not how he used to know her. She used to be the one who intrigued him. She was the one who stood out for him. She was his change from his norm. She was the good girl. The one they all said would go places. And he had been something quite the opposite; someone going through life one day at a time. No plans. No expectations. And it had excited her, he knew that much. And it had brought him in to a world he did not know, but was okay being in.

And now sometimes he thought about it, the times he had brought her there then, and the way everything had felt. She used to stand by the window and look out into the fields.

Everything had happened in this room.

Everything.

--


Her fingers were touching the paint coated window and they made their way to the small portion in the corner where there was no paint. They danced around the beam of light that made a spot on the floor. She could make out small fragments of dust moving randomly in the light.

She longed to scrape off the paint and look outside again into the golden fields as they swished against the wind. That was what she had loved about his place. When he had first brought her there, she had been surprised how much everything changed half an hour out of town towards the north. She had never been there before. And his house stood amidst yards of sun kissed fields with gold grass growing to more than her knees length.

Everything about him had been so intriguing. The way he would sit and puff at his cigarette while staring at her intently. Or how empty and dark his house always was. Or the fact that he spent most of his time in the room at the top which was supposed to be an attic, laying on a couch and reading books. He did not even have a bed; he only had a single mattress that lay in the corner next to a stack of books of authors she had never even heard off. He had been an air of excitement in her life. No certainties. No plans. He had broken her norms and showed her something different. She had felt so liberated. So alive.

And he was still the same. He still lay in his room and smoked the cigarettes. He still acted on impulse and then came back to his calm self again. He still read the same books and talked the same way. But something had changed. The darkness in the room haunted her now. His silence was so disturbing. His touch no longer left her trembling. His gaze, she could not meet anymore. His words were solid but empty to her.

--


She turned around and faced him. He looked in her direction and watched as she played with the hemline of her skirt.

"I have to go", she said with a little smile.

She looked up at him. He did not respond. She walked towards him and he felt her lips touch his forehead. He exhaled slightly.

He had never even been to her room. He imagined pink silk and unicorns and diaries with heart shaped locks, much like the rest of her world. He did not like unicorns. Why he had thought hers was a life he could fit in to, he did not know. 

Her hand grazed his face a little before she walked out. He heard her footsteps as they made their way down the stair case.

She no longer meant what she had to him. Her hands, her words they no longer meant the same thing. But she was fragile. She was a dreamer who could not stand her dreams being shattered. And he could not be responsible for breaking her. He held on for she needed him.

--

She reached the last step of the stairs and felt a tug in her stomach. She looked back up at the darkness upstairs. He was retreating in to his own world. He was alone, she was all he had. She could let him go this very day; she would be able to survive without his help, she knew that. She had a strong support system. She looked down and touched her slightly swelled stomach. Soon she would be able to feel it kick inside her.

That would excite him right? Something had to. But she had to be strong. He was alone. He was alone and he needed her. And that was why she held on.