[aphelion]

I'd hit a snag.

Somehow, some way, our relationship had grown. As our time wore thin the urgency of our embraces strengthened. Our once mischievous glances grew forlorn and wanting; our fingers would trace curls upon each other's palms like wisps of smoke in still air. At night we would lay next to each other in bed as though starved for each other, her leg slid over mine.

The deadline of my depature hung overhead as though suspended by a burning rope. The days came crushed together, narrow and hurried, and my impending departure loomed ever nearer. We'd last seen each other before Christmas, and the few flickering holy days afterward were wasted on family, at least as far as the crawling gloom inside believed it.

At the last hour before my flight I secured a moment to visit her again, and she leapt upon it, meeting me at the lobby of her apartment building. She clung to me, clutching my chest, her body jittering with emotion.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, my lips touching her hair.

"It's okay," she whispered back.

I visited her for a few minutes, sitting and holding hands with her, barely able to kiss her under the weight of the moment. She struggled for words, trying vainly to find levity amid the melancholy. I ran my hands over the smooth skin of her cheek.

I'd told her that 'we'd talk', that the future was wide open and who knew what could come of it. And though I'd always been sincere, at this moment I'd meant it more than I ever thought I could.

It had been an interesting few months. I'd discovered the secret; that words could charm, that honesty could beguile. And by now the terror of loneliness that had plagued my youth held no more sway over me; indeed, I'd literally dated around so much over the preceding few months that I'd neglected nearly every other pursuit for want of time and energy. Success, at last.

But what was success? Notches in the bedpost proved satisfying, but less than ultimately fulfilling. The magic of seduction enticed, but faded away in the morning light. And what did any of this mean when compared against the tear-glittered brown eyes of this little one beneath me--what greater worth could any of those milestones hold than that?

I write this on the plane, high above the clouds between Reykjavik and Frankfurt, clouds that now wash between pink and blue and the lighter shades between. I can't tell whether we're over land or sea. And now the future, at once now a similarly indistinct wash of colors, proves now more in question than ever before.