791 To Say Nothing
Things had become a lot more stiff and tense between the both of us after all that’s transpired, can you believe it? And suffice it to say, sadly, it was all for the very wrong reasons too.
I was just… drawing complete blanks in my head. No thoughts, no words, no nothing. It’s like the air had turned noxious with fumes designed to render me braindead, ’cause that’s exactly how I was feeling right at that moment – a living, breathing dummy.
Meanwhile, Adalia went and simply allowed her whims to tug her along toward anything that happened to catch her eye. A lot of cameras wound up being pointed at odd angles thanks to her, and some set designer is gonna end up being so confused wondering who the hell misplaced their props in all these weird places… I imagine some poor intern is gonna get fired.
See – now I’m getting sidetracked. That’s what happens. Every time I want to focus on the more important things, the more it just slips past me. After all the things I’ve been shown, there should be so many things that I wanted to say… and yet for the life of me I just couldn’t think of any.
And when I do somehow get a grasp on things, mustered the urge to finally break the silence, I just take one glance at her and it’ll all just come tumbling down back into nothingness.
Because really, what was the right thing to say? where the hell was the right place to even begin?
Anywhere, really anywhere – that was the obvious answer here. This is Adalia I’m considering, worrying, freakin’ losing my marbles for over here. She wouldn’t care for what I’d say, or for even how I’d say it. I could say anything, ask anything, and she’d accept it.
Anything at all.
But… do I even want to though?
.....
Christ, look at me – I’m the one who asked to know about the person she was before, and now that I have seen it, seen her with my very own eyes, suddenly I got nothing to say about it?
Maybe I should’ve studied harder, read more books in my youth, then perhaps I might just know the right words to share with her. But as of now, the way things were… more off-angled cameras, more missing props… and me, a silent audience to it all.
Another breeze blew in along with the pale shafts of moonlight from the cracks across the windows; I could faintly hear some cars revving through the snow-paved roads. I glanced down again at my phone. It was another fifteen minutes until the fireworks were set to launch.
Was I really gonna let it light the night skies with the way things stand?
To hell with it – anything, it was.
“A-Adalia…”
I took a deep breath, stared back ahead, and then I… I blinked.
“Adalia?”
She had completely disappeared from the set, nowhere to be seen rifling through the equipment. I didn’t even have the chance to feel confused about it before I felt every single muscle in me clamp up in terror as I peeked to the left of me.
There’s a reason why long-haired women are a staple of horror… and Adalia with her thick mass of silver and gloomy presence was just another very good reason.
Side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder, I felt her misty gaze burrowing through mine. My voice had escaped me again, but that was probably more to do with shock than cowardice… and so like some deer caught in a pair of gray, murky headlights, I watched as she crept even closer.
Right up to the point where there was barely a gap between the both of us, Adalia stopped, slowly dropping her gaze toward the open slit in my cloak and jacket, and with curiosity rousing, cocked her head.
I saw her lift her hand, and without a word, she reached into one of my pockets. Realization struck me the moment felt her hand clutch onto something firm and heavy.
Completely forgot. She had questions of her own, didn’t she? And since it seems like I wasn’t gonna open my mouth anytime soon, guess she decided to go and take the answer herself… quite literally.
Adalia stepped back, her open palm sagging slightly with the heft of a small, glittering, white ribbon… its luster of gemstones across its surface perfectly matching the cold, gray in her eyes.
“It’s yours,” I said, feeling obligated to at least provide some clarity. “The organizer back at the park, he handed that to me. It’s the prize for the couple that got first place.”
“First… place…” an understanding whisper as she glanced back down at the hairpin, her shadow clouding the ribbon’s glimmer, leaning so closely over it. “We… won…?”
“In all accounts besides an announcement and congratulations on stage,” I said. “Sadly, proposals still take priority over winning when it comes to that.”
“I… see…”
“Turns out, your wish had been granted, after all. First place winners, first place lovers – us,” I smiled, feeling my cheeks crackle and break as if frozen in ice from lack of use. “Not how I wished to break the news to you, but – well, in any case… I hope you’re happy with it.”
“I am… happy…” She stated, her tone and expression so far from the sincerity she couldn’t properly convey. “I am… very happy…”
Yet it still showed. In other ways, she showed. The endearing way she took to it, clutching the ribbon with both hands and slowly holding it close to herself, and there it stayed… kept so close to the beating of her heart.
Quickly, I felt the ice thaw from the corner of my lips. “Glad to hear it.”
This was the part where I embraced her, wasn’t it? Hold my arms out, take her in, kiss her – happily ever after.
Except that feeling still lingered. That ‘nothing’ feeling, those noxious fumes… keeping my arms, my wants, firmly restrained.
“Do not… talk… about it…”
It took me a split-second to realize that I even heard her speak up again, that she was still gazing right at me.
“What?” I asked blankly.
“Do not… talk about… it…” She repeated again. “...if you do… not want to… talk about… it…”
No point speculating. It was a waste of time playing dumb. She and I both know what exactly we both have in mind.
“I feel like I should though,” I said. “That I kinda need to, y’know?”
“You… don’t…”
“Even if that’s true,” I blew out a long, heavy breath. “Seriously, Adalia – I put you through all the trouble of showing me all that, and you don’t have any interest as to what I have to say?”
“No…”
“Not even a bit?”
She blinked. A brief pause, a brief ponder… before she spoke again.
“Do you… hate me…?”
“I – what?”
“If you… hate me… I… want to know… why…” she said, her bluntness clashing with my shock. “Do… you hate… me…?”
“Of course not,” I said aloud. There was no need to think about it, even with all the things I’d seen and heard flashing across my mind, I didn’t hesitate. “Never, Adalia. The thought hasn’t even crossed me once. I would never think it.”
Another pause, and like wind dissipating, the tension seemed to shift, dwindling. Suddenly, her silence didn’t feel so heavy.
“Then… I don’t care… what you say… or what you think… about me…” She shuffled forward, and that inch of space between us had vanished, and in its place, Adalia laid her head against my chest. “I only care… that you still… love me…”
Forget what I said earlier. This was it, this was the part where I actually embrace her, and feeling my arms weightless and free, that’s precisely what I did. The cold of her skin like assurance, and the feel of her body like a warm night’s comfort.
“The fact that you even have to ask me that…” I murmured, my face buried in the soft bed of her hair. “...so you were that worried about it, huh?”
She didn’t answer me, but she didn’t have to. The way she kept close, the way her body seemed to ease up in my arms. Sometimes nothing at all was the only right thing to say.
“For the time being, I’m still kinda processing it all,” I said to her. “I’m sure in time I’ll find something I want to talk about, but for now, well… there’s still some time before the fireworks begin, what do you want to do until then?”
We broke apart, with Adalia being the one to slip away. She took a step back and slowly pulled her hands away from her chest, presenting to me her answer in the form of bright glitz and glitter sat between the tips of her claws.
Alright, wasn’t expecting that.
“You want to try out the ribbon?”
She nodded.
“Okay, go for it. I’d like to see it on you too.”
Yet alas, unmoving and still her hands remained rigidly in place.
“I… do not know… how to wear… it…”
“Seriously?”
“Vampires… do not use… hairpins…”
“Mm, clearly.”
Adalia continued to stare straight at me, jutting the hairpin out even more towards me… y’know, in case the message wasn’t already obvious enough yet.
“You make me do it, you’re setting yourself up for disaster, y’know?” I said. “I’m just as clueless as you – I’ll only wind up ruining your already perfect look.”
“I do not… care…” She bluntly responded, her gaze swirling with dogged stubbornness, “I want you… to do it…”
And against those eyes – yeah, needless to say… I had already plucked the ribbon out of her hands before I could even finish sighing.
“You realize this is gonna take a while?”
“That is… okay…” She said, scampering off to find a spot to settle herself down, her silky silvery locks whipping across the air and glinting mesmerizingly in the deep moonlight. “We have… time…”
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