The Ahh-ness of Things (or The Sentinel of Mono No Aware)

Pretty & Sweet

Donnie took my hands into one of his own & pulled them away from my chest. They felt so small clasped inside of his fingers. His nails were trimmed down to soft points & his skin smelled like dried flowers. He had cleaned himself up; even his shell was scrubbed smooth. It was inviting & familiar but the tone in his voice was something new.

"April, why are you holding onto yourself like that?" He gently pulled my fingers open.

I wasn't sure what exactly he wanted to hear. Was this his way of asking me to talk to him or did he want to comfort me so we could go to sleep.either could be the Donnie I knew. "You've been avoiding touching me this whole week, Donnie."

"Well I'm not now." There was a kind of dark heaviness in his voice that made me apprehensive as he put my hand to his face. This face I had loved, the charm of his big, dark eyes; crowned by rounded brow bones that lended him both a look sincerity & a pensive glint to his stare when irritated. The long slope of his snout gave him more of a human face than his brothers. The low curve of his mouth pulled inwards when he spoke & it gave the soft appearance of lips, although he was lacking them. I was watching his mouth now, how he was able to form words without moving his jaw & it only made his face seem fuller. My palm rested on the hollow of his cheek & he curled my finger tips up under his eye, purposely drawing my gaze. " I have nothing to hide from you, April." His eyes glittered as they reflected the tiny strings of lights hanging over us. They were like an ocean under the stars. An ocean of warm waters threatening to turn cold as storms circled us in the dark. "What are you hiding from me?"

The way he was looking at me was not really as if he were waiting for an answer. He knew instinctively that when the things I held back were let out, it would be a rip tide pulling something out from under him. He was fighting his impatience & trying to allow me room to speak but it was apparent our youthful roles had reversed. When we were kids, he had a way of taking so long to get to his point whenever it had emotional weight, & I would become annoyed; having already gotten the jist of what he was trying to say. It always took the power of those moments away from him & it was bitter pill now knowing how that felt. Watching someone who you really needed to open up to, losing all interest, so you choke & settle on 'never minds'.

"There's too much to say now, D."

I knew that look, I'd given him that face a hundred times. It had lost much of its innocence now that we were older & he just seemed weary. No worse, he was apathetic & I understood that to be the source of my apprehension; he didn't really care anymore if we spent the night talking it out or just went to sleep. The opportunity was gone & he might not offer it again.

"Donnie if you only knew.. I just don't know how... I don't want to hurt you." I had taken him for granted. I couldn't go back now & change it. I had played with his emotions too many times, knowing he wouldn't go far. 

"You already did."

He kissed me. A kiss like it was over. Like I wasn't his but he still had some right left to put his mouth to mine. Maybe for a second I thought we could start like this; I could kiss him back & it would soften the blows & I could find the words, but within moments it became a kiss goodbye. I put my hands to his face, in the way his family showed the purest of affection & kissed him deeply. No goodbyes, no this can't end here. Almost as soon as my palms were both laid across his cheeks, he pulled them down. It was an act of distrust. Yet he kept kissing me, laying next to me, with my fingers now hooked into the ridge of his shell where it came away from his collar bone. I couldn't let this be the end of us, not in some shallow embrace, not when the whole reason I left was in fear but out of love. I left to keep him from the pain I chose to take on myself. He had to know the truth, he had it all wrong & now, now he was just kissing me out of obligation. He was after the closure. Closure for what intention? 

He breathed air deeply into my lungs, the way we had done so long ago, a trick he knew that made me dizzy. It wasn't out of passion or sweetness, he was waiting for the physical response. He was looking for my eyes to flutter & my heart to race for him. For me to feel good all over from the pure oxygen rushing to my head. He locked his mouth to mine as he blew again, slowly this time. He broke away, just as a flash of a pretty face blinked into my thoughts. I could smell that sweet smell again. I could taste it; sweet like sugar & clean like the pharamones of someone else's saliva when you want them. That wasn't his smell, that wasn't the taste of his mouth. He was looking at me as a I stared straight ahead blankly; all I could see was a young girl's face; a memory from his mind.

I was so dumbfounded I didn't even notice he had pulled my head back to his & now had his hands in my hair. I was filling with the heat of jealousy. I knew this presence without realizing I did. I had felt it off & on throughout the trainstation, since I'd been back. Like a scent that drifts through the air without a source or a sound in the distance & you don't know where it's coming from. It was from someone I'd never known, someone who had been here; not in this room but in the house, & it was mostly around him.

I closed my eyes & let him hold me, running his fingers down my arm as his hands moved around my back, pushing away what I already knew, without having to see it. He had been leaving every night to be with someone else. Her perfume lingered around him, from her touch. The guys had to know; she had been here enough for me to feel her energy. He needed this last chance, closure with me. He had taken down my pictures because he had met someone else & all the nights he came to check on me were really to tell me what weighed on his heart. Yet he put it off, this girl was new to their world & he wasn't committed to her, but he was forever one to do the right thing. I showed up, I pulled him back, & now he was stuck trying to get me to give him a reason. As he kissed me agin, pulling me tighter against him , I could feel desperation suddenly, like he knew what I could see.Maybe he just couldn't keep pushing me away. He had told the truth, he didn't have anything to hide from me, but I hadn't given him any reason why his personal life should be my business any more, other than I wanted it to be. Not until I came sneaking into his room. 

Now I had the answer & sadly I knew I shouldn't have found out this way. Had he been hiding my return from her? I was positive they hadn't become too serious but the more he touched me, the more the flashes of her came into my mind, & I knew he had been out with her even tonight. I sat up, leaning back on my hands & looked at him. He was incredible, his face alone captivated my imagination. His heart & his personality had captured my life. Almost everything I had done or learned about life & the world since I was 16 had revolved around him & his family. I was aways the outsider, yet he had made me their own because he wanted me to share this life with him. She was different. She was like him. She belonged. I put my hands to his face again & this time he leaned forward to me & grabbed my face with his own hands, eye to eye.