12/15/11

The Lovers
By K.W. Taylor


“This isn’t real?” Izzy blinked up at him. Her voice was flat, emotionless.

“I guess.” He took a step backward. “But . . . ” He wanted to say more, but all his thoughts were tangled, jumbled, incoherent. Instead, he simply sighed.

Izzy tore her eyes from his and moved away, flopping down on the sofa. “Well, I mean, it’s not like I hated you or something,” she murmured. “I thought you were nice enough.” She frowned. “I guess. I’m trying . . . it’s so hard to remember. I’m thinking through this veil of--”

“Love,” he interjected. The word pierced the room like an arrow, even though he’d spoken it quietly.

She nodded, looking down at her lap. “Love,” Izzy agreed after a moment’s silence. “It’s hard to think through all this love.” Her voice was rougher now, the thick quality of someone trying not to cry.

“Do you care?” he asked. He was still across the room, making no move to comfort her, though he desperately wanted to. But everything was second guesses now. Did he want to go to Izzy, touch her, hold her? Or was something making him want to? And did it matter?

“I care about what was done to us,” Izzy finally replied. “I care about not having choice.” Now she looked at him again. She still wasn’t crying. “This doesn’t have to change anything if we don’t want it to.”

But did they? “I need some time.” He was outside before she could say anything else. That heart-shaped face, those eyes… he couldn’t be around Izzy right now.

Except that she followed him. He could never hide from Izzy; she knew everything about him, all his mind’s workings, all his tendencies, even what direction he’d walk down the sidewalk when he stormed out of a building.

“Tristan!” Her voice was a shriek, a yelp, a desperate cry on the autumn wind.

He turned. He couldn’t see her through his own tears. They ran to each other and embraced.

Three months earlier, there had been two glasses on a table. Two sips. That was all it took.


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My fiction and non-fiction have been featured in many print and web publications, and my first novella, “We Shadows Have Offended,” was just released by Etopia Press last month. I also have a short story appearing in the upcoming Wicked East Press anthology Once Bitten, Never Die. I teach college English in Ohio.