The Wall

“When do you leave?” he asked, the words squashing their way out of his hard-set lips.

“Tomorrow,” I said quietly.

He sighed deeply. “Then I’ll go with you,” he said determinedly.

Watching the heat and anger swirl around the both of us, I wondered, How do you break someone? Do you have to be callous and unfeeling? Or did you think your bond was strong enough to take it? And it wasn’t, you were wrong.

“No. You can’t.” I watched his face crumple, his eyes looking right through me. “Someone needs to stay with Orry. Besides, you’re too loud,” I said with a weak smile. “You couldn’t sneak up on Addy, and she’s deaf!”

He wasn’t amused.

He stood two meters from me, his arms folded calmly across his chest. I watched them rise and fall with his breath, watched him try to control his anger.

“Well, I guess you’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” he said resentfully. Then his eyes sparked. “Except for one thing.”

I didn’t want to ask but I had the feeling he would say it anyway. “What’s that?”

His eyes were fuming, the green boiling over, his temper rising. Gold could be an angry color.

“I won’t let you go.”

I took a deep breath. “Joseph, you know you can’t stop me. I’m going.”

He was losing it, throwing any argument at me he could to stop me from going. He was pitching his arms in the air, pacing back and forth, “Don’t you think I would like to rescue my parents? Why do you get to and I don’t?”

The answer to that question was easy. “It’s different, you know that. Your parents are safe. They are happy. They… love each other. I’m thinking of my baby brother or sister too. Orry’s blood.”

Silence followed for what seemed like forever as he glared at me. I hadn’t moved and my legs started to ache. I shifted my weight back and forth. How could I make this make sense to him? Could I? I leaned on the back of an armchair and waited for him to speak.

When he opened his mouth, the force was still strong but some of the anger had drained away. “Why is this so important?” He knew why. “Aren’t you happy with Orry and me?” His tone was bewildered, strained.

It broke my heart to hurt him like this. But then, it was already kind of broken. I considered his question. Didn’t he realize that’s why I needed to do this?

I slid towards him slowly, gliding across the floor in my socks like an ice skater, talking as I moved. “Of course I am.” I grasped his hands but he shook me free like I was trying to cuff him. Surely, we had to be stronger than this. “That’s why.”

“I don’t understand.” He laid his head in his hands like the words were giving him a headache.

“Don’t you think everyone deserves this, what we have?” I pleaded.

Recognition flickered in his eyes.

“Rosa.” He jolted back suddenly, wringing his hands. He pulled his hair back from his eyes. My heart skipped and all I could see was him. Like one of Orry’s pop-up books, he stood clear, the rest of the world turned blurry—boring two-dimensional representations of the real thing. “I’m so angry with you,” he stuttered. “How could you… I mean, what am I supposed to do if… damn it.” He clasped his hands together and looked at the floor. He was never lost for words. The gravity of our situation had pulled them away.

I could have walked away. Maybe I should have. Let him cool off or tried harder to convince him I was right. Instead, I took two steps towards him and co

His arms were slack at his sides for a moment, like I’d shocked him into submission. But I pressed hard against his chest. I literally threw my body at the problem, holding the two crushing walls, the opposing opinions, at bay with my twig-like arms. I felt heat taking over, lips colliding and kissing deeper than they had before. I thought, He may set me back, put me in my place, be the sensible one as always and tell me to stop. But after a few seconds, his arms gripped me tightly. They dragged up my back and under my shirt with such pressure I could barely breathe.

He pulled my shirt over my head and threw it on the ground. Lifting me up, he moved towards the bedroom door, bracing my back against the doorframe as he kissed my neck and slipped my bra strap off my shoulder to kiss my collarbone. I shivered, goose bumps growing all over my skin. He ran one hand over the lace of my bra and wound it behind my back to release the clasp. When he did it so swiftly, I resisted the urge to ask him if he’d done it before. Then words would never have hoped to find me as he brushed his lips across my chest and I thought I would die.

Joseph lowered me onto the bed, keeping his hand in the small of my back, my body arcing over his strong forearm. He paused and looked at me for what seemed like forever. The curtains were closed, sunlight creating a golden frame around the fabric. It felt like the room might burst into flames, the light sparking and curling upwards. I sat up and pulled his shirt over his head. Pressing my palms to his chest, I marveled at his body. Strips of yellow light danced across his sun-kissed skin. Undeserving didn’t really cover it.

This was the point of no return. But we were already too far gone. There was no going back from here. He tugged back the covers and folded me into them, sliding in next to me. I wiggled out of my pants, kicking them to the side. The world was melting around us. Breath was quick, taken between lips meeting each other, to skin, to be lost in layers of fresh-smelling hair. Hearts were beating strangely. We didn’t know what we were doing but we knew exactly what to do. He rolled over until he was hovering above me, just like he had done a hundred times before, but now there was nothing between us. All I could think was, I want to be closer. I want every bit of my skin to be touching every bit of his. I pulled him down, feeling the warmth enveloping me. The soft pressure of his lips on mine, drawing me in, tasting dewy and sweet.

He pulled back, coasting above me, too much space between our bodies. His arms flexed under his weight. His beautiful, green eyes were glistening like faceted emeralds, roaming all over my tiny frame, waves of heat touching every inch of my skin.

Shyness disappeared. I felt desperation, an aching need, and I tried to pull him into me. But he hesitated.

“I love you,” he said.

I thought, Don’t speak. Don’t stop. Show me.

And then the whole room was humming gold as we discovered more about each other than we’d ever imagined. We were undone and pulled back together. Even the dust in the corner was sparkling like dying stars.

Nothing prepared me for it, the moment. I was moving on a river, my body ebbing and moving with the current and then, suddenly, I was pulled out and cracked open, a fissure of gold light pressing out of my chest and skimming forth over the room.

I was nothing before this.

This was forgetting.

This was living.

Somewhere, I lost my thoughts. I was weightless, tied to a hundred birds in flight, soaring through empty space. Thoroughly warm and entirely safe.

This was everything.

Now I know you. I know me. And I know how much you will hate me when you find out I am gone.

It was still dark. I shuffled out of bed, carefully lifting Joseph’s heavy arm from my waist without waking him. A lamplight shone from the lounge room, casting heavy shadows across the door and softly illuminating his sleeping face. I stared at him for one terrible minute, watching him breathe, the pulse in his neck beating slowly, calmly, my own heart stretching through my shirt and reaching out to lie back in his arms. Could I leave him? All of my doubts sprung up between the floorboards and wrapped around my ankles like vines, threatening to tie me to this spot, hovering over him forever.