Between the Perennial Blooms || Paul Lahote

Twenty Six | Foxglove

"(iv) 'the number you have dialed is not available'
the nights are made of buzzing white noise; some of us don't have the luxury of dreaming in gold — our memories an abundant graveyard weathered each season. my grief tastes like the depths of the sea, its texture of stones weighing down my tongue. sandpapered rawness an indelible scar in the roof of my mouth. i cannot carve words from the grief that resides between the brittle ribs of my chest."
—Eliot C. | enter stage 1; exit stage 5

• • •

All Bailey could think about as she got dressed the next morning was the feeling of Paul's lips on hers. Their kiss had been slow and sweet and cautionary in its build-up — as if all day Paul had been bending down closer and closer in her proximity so that very outcome might occur. The tips of his fingers had rested against the column of her throat lightly, catching just on the underside of her jaw with the gentlest of pressures and tilting her face to his in a way that left their mouths at the perfect angle so as to slot together without a centimeter of skin left untouched. Then the movement of his lips against hers had proceeded in languid caresses of plump bottom lip against top and thinner top lip against bottom and soon gradually escalated into a dizzying pace that left her both breathless and faint. She had clung to him tightly when they parted, fingers curled abruptly into the hem of his t-shirt so as to ground herself against the only thing that remained still in her suddenly tremulous world, whilst Paul chuckled breathlessly against her cheek. For a moment, all the world was a blur and her chest felt expanded like a balloon that threatened to carry her away at any second with the lightness of it. Then Paul's nose had nuzzled into the curls tucked behind her ear and his hands moved to wrap one around the back of her head and the other around her waist, and as quickly as the spinning had begun, she felt grounded again with his arms pressing her to his chest in a tight hug. No words could come to mind after it had happened and Paul chuckled once more when her mouth parted only to form an 'O'. 'Maybe we should take it a little slower next time.' Paul had said as he looked into her dazed cerulean eyes with those smoldering mahogany orbs of his. 'N-next time?' was all she had managed to stutter in reply, and smirking in amusement, Paul nodded twice. 'Yeah,' he echoed his words from earlier as he lifted his hand to brush a wayward strand of hair back from where it had curled against her forehead. 'Definitely slower next time,' he said. Then he had proceeded to carry her down the hall to settle in for the night against the pillows atop his bed.

Now though, as Bailey ran an untwisted tube of chap-stick over the very lips Paul's had touched just the night before, Bailey felt giddy with emotion. She twirled around her room with all the rapture of a prima ballerina — though not without tremendous effort paired with an even more ungraceful limp — as she prepared herself for the event to take place in just a few minutes; that event being, of course, her long-awaited meeting with the Cullen family. Edward was set to pick her and Bella up any minute now and knowing that Esme, the woman who Edward claimed to be his rather unorthodox mother figure of whom loved nothing more than to cook despite her strictly-liquid diet and had therefore made what could only be described as a breakfast feast, Bailey had opted to wear a loose mauve-colored sweater that hung passed the soft legging-clad bandages on her thigh and consequently hid the bulkiness of them as well. She sat on the edge of her bed and bent at the waist so as to slip on a pair of thick woolen socks to match, and after absentmindedly glancing at the time on the clock at her bedside table, she squealed softly in the quiet of her room. Two minutes, she urged herself; then after begrudgingly reaching for her crutches, she quickly raced back to her closet for her forgotten sneakers.

"It's time to go, Bay!" Bella's voice carried through Bailey's open bedroom door from somewhere on the floor below. "Edward's just pulled in!"