The Persistence of Memory

Chapter Seventeen

As I stare at the thing on the wall with the paintbrush in my hand I start to worry that the more I work on it the less she'll like it. This morning I'd already added some highlights in her hair and a little more depth to her eyes, but I didn't want to over-do it or overpaint it. Especially since she actually liked it.

I'd been up since 6 am having slept the entire night after she left.  I can't remember sleeping so long, or so well, or waking up so early in my entire fucking life. The only time I'm ever awake at 6 am is for a flight, or because I haven't been to bed yet. It's normally torture.  Though not today.  Despite waking up alone with the only smell of her on the sheets for company, and wondering whether I'd dreamt the entire fucking thing, I feel better than I could remember ever feeling.

It occurs to me that letting her go last night was just a taster of how it was going to feel when this was over.  It scared the living shit out of me, to be honest. But she isn't gone yet. She's coming back to me today and that had been the only reason I'd been able to let her leave last night.

I'd thought about that as I'd run around the park this morning. As I ran, I'd played over every minute I'd spent inside her and tried to decide whether I'd be happy with yesterday being all I ever got. I'd gotten more than I ever dreamed I would. I'd held her in my arms as I made love to her. I'd woke up next to her more than once over the course of the day. But in the end, I'd decided that no, I wouldn't be happy for that to be all I got.

I wanted more. A lot fucking more.

I'm shit scared to properly dissect why it had happened, or the events that had led to it, but I'm convinced now that it hadn't been about him or his apparent infidelity.  It hadn't felt like revenge for something he'd done. Eloise wasn't that kind of person anyway — that much I had come to realise. There was no malice in her. Not like there is in me. She'd been conscious and fully aware of what we were doing.  She'd let me use her body for my own pleasure not out of revenge, but because it's what she'd wanted. And I'd let her do the same with mine.

A quiet groan escapes my mouth at the memory of her beneath me, moaning my name as I made her come.

"Bloody hell," I hear from behind me. 

I don't startle and I don't turn around.  Ever since the day the bullet exploded through my mother's body it had taken a lot to startle me.  I lean in and touch the sky grey to the hollow of her neck, my hand placing soft light touches against her canvas skin. With a steady hand, I carve out a slight shadow beneath her hair.

"Fucking big isn't it?" he adds, closer to me now.

"It's 5 by 4, it's not that big," I say quietly, trying to keep my body still. He doesn't say anything more but I feel his eyes watching me for the next few minutes until I pull back from the canvas. I stare at the new spot for a long moment; examining the path my brush just took, before letting out a breath and turning to face him. He's wearing sunglasses, indoors. I want to punch him.  Only blind people should wear sunglasses indoors. I frown at his ridiculousness. "Letting yourself in again, mate?"

"You gave me a key for a reason," he reasons.

"Yeah, in case I locked myself out or lost it when I was pissed," I say.  What if Eloise had stayed the night? What then? Pat would obviously take my secrets to the grave, but I didn't want to give her any reason to freak out and put an end to whatever this was. Pat walking in on us would certainly freak her out.

He gives me a confused look "Hmmmm, I was pretty sure it was so I could bring hot American chicks back here whenever you were out, instead of bringing them to the fucking dump I'm staying in across town," he frowns. "Why don't you go out more, Aidan?"