Vicariously Yours,

Expressingly Freeing

The credits open in the wide screen in front of her and the grand noble music follows after. Isabella sat in the sordid red cinema seat in the quiet hall. She had no idea why she came here but after two weeks of toiling and keeping up with schedules and appointments and no sign of Marcelo. Upon seeing Christmas movie night at this rundown cinema, she couldn't resist.

She had no idea what was playing but having the entire hall to herself with just a hand full of other strangers lingering in the corners, she felt relaxed and finally free to just...be. She angled her seat back and watching the title play: Polar Express. Even the soothing original motion picture sound track gave her the same fluttering sensation she felt, making her skin bubble in happy goosebumps and she shivered.

As the film began, Isabella zoomed in. Her focus on the lines she heard many times before. She liked familiarity. It was not unpredictable. It had the safety of a cocoon. She remembered watching this film when she was old enough to understand that Christmas was celebrated in different ways outside her family. She never had the ripe luster with a big family dinner and carol singing Christmas in all of her life. It often made her feel like an outsider and slowly, her Christmas routine just had her wondering the streets, watching other people and staying by herself like she always did. This was familiar.

What was unfamiliar was...Marcelo. Being with him was not something she could do without thinking of a mental plan. Certainly in moments like those of his kisses and his hands touching her and her curves. The words she uttered to him. The words he whispered to her. Isabella kept rewinding that in her head so many times. It was like a reel that showed her the whole thing from top to bottom, to her favorite bits and to the most uncomfortable moments as well.

She reprimanded herself for doing the exact things she told herself not to. That she knew it would cause trouble and bloody hell, she didn't need trouble now. She wanted peace. Just serenity and peace. Like how it was before. Before she met Marcelo. However, that was a phrase in her life, where she could admit to herself that she wasn't really living. Let alone existing.

"Fancy meeting you here."

Isabella closed her eyes, hating fate and timing and everything cooked together to make this moment achievable. He move along the row, reaching her seat and sat down with a bodily sigh. She was greeted with his strong scent of sandalwood and awareness mingled in her spine.

"Please don't tell me you are following me."

"I'm not. I have a life, you know." He snorts, pressing himself back into his seat. Then adding quietly, "I might have watched you enter the building."

She turns her head in his way, not believing him. She shakes her head as she takes in his dark sweatshirt and black joggers, he looked tired and the circles under his eyes were prominent. His cheek bones looking sharper.

"Are you not sleeping?" She was provoked with the images of him and Pamela doing the dirty and instantly, regretted that question.

He just grunts, his topaz eyes not leaving the screen. Unsure what to do, Isabella mimics his position and leans back down, looking back at the screen, leaving it alone. As they watch in silence, the space kept between them continued to diminish slowly. Isabella didn't realized this until his elbow touched her upper arm.

Unable to take it, she turns to him but she couldn't say anything but look at the side of his face. He had trimmed his beard short, he looked rugged as always but in a pretty tired rugged sort of way. His bald head gleamed and for the first time, she started noticing everything. His ear, his neck, his shoulder, his bulging arm down to his hand that lay perfectly still on top of his thigh.

"What?"

She blinked up and warmth filled her cheeks, knowing she had been caught. Usually she would say 'nothing', but she didn't feel like lying or stop stuffing everything right deep inside of her.