You tossed the pillow down on the divan next to me, slightly harder than was strictly necessary.
“Where is this coming from?” I asked. My heart was beating a jig in my throat, my breaths coming fast and shallow. I felt like I had missed a crucial turn in our dance.
“You wish to run off and live a rustic life with her in her hovel, is that it?”
“What? No! My lord, I would never, I love you! You and only you have my heart.”
“Save your breath,” you said, swinging from enraged to exhausted. Your shoulders slumped, your knit brows going soft and pitiful. You looked very sad all of a sudden, as though reminded of some half-forgotten tragedy.
I pushed tentatively up from my chair, crossing the room to you.
“I would never leave you, my love. Not for the entirety of my second life.” Your eyes were wounded, filled with suspicion, but you let me reach out and press a gentle hand against your chest. “I swear it.”
You nodded, swallowing back more words that threatened to bubble up and betray you. But betray what? Was there some secret heartbreak in your past that you carried in tormented solitude?
“Did something happen?” I asked quietly. I felt suddenly very useless, as though there were depths of pain within you that even my gentle love couldn’t plunge. Scars that you would not allow me to see, much less heal.
You heaved a sigh and smoothed a hand over my cheek, taking me in with those appraising eyes. Then, as though making up your mind, you leaned in and kissed my forehead.
“It’s nothing, Constanta. Forgive my temper.”
With that, you slipped away, leaving me confused and alone.
You left for two days after that. I still don’t know to where. You gave no warning, no explanation, simply took up your hat and slipped out of the house one evening while I was still waking up. I dimly remember seeing your dark silhouette stalking away across the city square, shoulders hunched. You gave no indication of when you would be back, and once it became plain that you hadn’t simply stepped out for air or an errand, the panic began to set in. I hadn’t been without you for a single day since you found me, and I realized with shattering terror that I had no idea who I was if you were not at my side.
Were you dead, decapitated in the dirt somewhere? I didn’t know exactly what could kill things like us, but you had theorized decapitation could do it.
Had I done something wrong? Had I earned your total abandonment with my dalliance with Hanne, with my wandering eye for the city and her charms? I ruminated over my every indiscretion, chewing my nails bloody and wandering aimlessly from room to room. The city called to me, and I was desperate not to be alone, but what if you came back and found me gone? Would I have failed another one of your mysterious tests, proving my fallibility? I sent away the artisans when they came knocking at the door, even my precious Hanne, who I never spoke to again. To do so, I felt, would be a betrayal of you.
For two days, I burned. I broke into a cold sweat like I was flushing opium out of my system. I writhed in our marital bed, sheets sticking to my sallow skin, as misery crawled along my skin with scorching fingers. I prayed to God to crack open the sky and douse me in enough rain to stop me smoldering, but I was left alone in my sickly fever.
Then, late in the evening on the second day, you arrived at our door. You stood in the doorway, the shoulders of your coat speckled with crystal rain, your cruel mouth reddened from the cold, looking more perfect than ever before.
I sank down at your feet and cried until I was empty, my long hair covering your shoes like a mourning veil. You didn’t pick me up until I was shaking, then you drew me into your embrace and wrapped me in your cloak. You smoothed my hair and shushed me, rocking me like a babe.
“It’s alright, my jewel, my Constanta. I’m here.”
I held you tight as life, and let you scoop me up like a doll and carry me gently into our bedroom.
You seemed to me a fire burning in the woods. I was drawn in by your enticing, smoky darkness, a darkness that still stirs memories of safety, of autumn, of home. I touched you the way I would touch any other man, trying to make my eager presence known and inscribe some sense of intimacy between us. But it was like grasping at a flame. I never penetrated to the burning heart of you, only came away with empty, scorched fingers.
Whenever we were apart, you left your essence caught in my hair, in my clothes. I scented the taste of it on the wind, I shivered and ached for it. I could think of nothing but you the entire time you were gone, until you returned to me.
I was happy to spend countless lifetimes chasing the warmth coming off you, even though the haze was clouding my vision.