Scenes from a Book I Won’t Write

 

 

They sit close, beneath the branches of a sprawling oak tree.

 

Inside, live music rattles the walls, but out back on a small, wooden bench in the summer moonlight, it is quiet.

 

They share a drink menu. As the minutes drift by, he traces his thumb across her shoulder and her eyelids flutter closed. When they dare to flicker open, he kisses the top of her head. And then again and again, lingering for a moment because her hair smells of roses or lavender or freesia–good things he’s forgotten and is suddenly desperate, so desperate to remember.

 

She leans into him, uncertain and timid, but presses her lips to his cheek, his neck, the place above his collar, and she wonders if anyone has taken the time to kiss that skin. If anyone else has ever thought it might be the loveliest place on earth.

 

They say nothing. They drink nothing. Their mouths have yet to meet.

 

And already.

 

Already, they are drunk.

 

 

 

Already, we were drunk.

 

 

 

 

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