Title:
Nights Like These
Author:
CGB
Email:
luberluber@yahoo.com.au
Web:
http://Appelsini.tripod.com/Christine/
Feedback:
Glorious baby.
Spoilers:
None.
Category:
CJ/Toby
Archive:
Sure.
Summary:
"This is What Love Does"
*
She has
these moments.
She has
these thoughts, these feelings that are neither unreal nor tangible.
Just a
sense of something she can't leave behind when she runs away.
When
she runs into the street like a madwoman on a night like tonight
looking
for a cab.
She has
these memories, memories of falling in and out of relationships
and
never quite getting it right, and she can hear someone saying, telling
people
'this is what love does' and it's her voice speaking those words,
sounding
like her mother, but it's her voice.
She has
this ghost. This figure that she drags with her on nights like this
when
she's out going nowhere in particular just being out, being a non-
person.
This figure that rises to the surface of her memories like a ghost
walking
on water. It's something that won't go away.
She
looks in the window of a shop front and thinks she sees this ghost,
this
spectre behind her, tailing her. When she turns the image is no longer
there.
She has
these daydreams. His hand reaching for her, slipping around her
neck
pulling her closer, so close she's breathless.
They come
intermittently
and leave her feeling like she's about to jump off this cliff
she's
scaled. She places herself in denial and tells herself that one time is
one time.
One
time and never again.
But one
time is enough to leave an imprint on the back of her mind like a
stain
that won't wash out. She can't forget it and she can't stop thinking
about
what it means.
She has
this desire and sometimes it's more than she can handle, so she
lets it
take over. When she's drunk, when she's tired, when she's not in
control
she finds herself in this well, this ocean, treading water and
sinking
fast. She makes mistakes. She makes mistakes that are heavy and
drag
her under.
She has
this persona. This one that is there, out the front of the White
House
and under public scrutiny. She has this persona that is taking over
gradually
but surely and she's pleased because it's been a long time since
she's
had to tread water. It's been a long time coming but she thinks she's
there,
she's finally where she wants to be.
And
it's nights like these that are the exception rather than the rule, but
everyone
falls sometimes. Everyone stumbles on their way up the
mountain.
She has
an inclination to be somewhere where she can't hear her thoughts
and
their constant struggle for dominance in her mind. She knows
somewhere
that is dark and smoky and full of people like her not
listening,
not hearing their thoughts.
She
finds a seat at the bar with a drink in her right hand and her left
craving
the cigarettes she no longer smokes.
She
meets a man who seats himself next to her. She treads water once
more.
She shares a drink. She shares his cigarette. She laughs and she
flirts
and for a moment, just for a moment that ghost is nowhere in sight.
And
then she sees herself. The television screen above the bar shows
stock
footage of the President followed by her own face, that persona,
that
person who knows, thinks, feels in a way that she's wanted to for so
many
years now.
And
then she knows that the ghost is her.
She has
his address in her head and she's never forgotten it, since he
pressed
it into her palm on a card the day they moved to Washington.
He's
never there so she takes a gamble thinking he might be there now.
She
thinks she should probably tell the cab to wait but she doesn't
because
she set out to leave herself behind tonight and the cab is a quick
road
back to wherever she's left herself.
He
isn't there. She waits. She sits with her back against his door and
thinks
about why she is there.
She has
something to tell him. It's about love and about desire and falling
off
mountains but most of all, it's about ghosts and memories.
He
arrives in minutes, or is it hours? He takes her by the hand and pulls
her to
a standing position and asks her what she's doing there.
She
tells him that she's that she's not really sure but she knows that she
did
something one time that she never expected to do again and it's all
because
she can't shake this ghost, this echo, this refraction of herself that
is
something that should be long forgotten. Something to be drowned.
But she
believes and she hopes that if she tries it could be something,
really
something. She has this belief, this
faith that with him and her, and
everything
about them that has been good and brilliant, it could be
different.
It could all be so much better.
And it
might not be much, but it's all she has.
End.