She sat with her head in her hands, the stack of books leaning against the headboard of her bed. Every now and then her wandering eyes would flicker toward them, and then consequently flicker across the room, as if the sight pained her. Her breast heaved with a long-winded sigh, and she slouched back onto her grey corduroy overcoat. She grasped it in both hands, white-knuckled, as if it were a life-vest, and her own quilt upon her bed was the dark churning sea. Her eyes still roved about her room, more generously though, now that the books weren’t in her line of vision. She wanted freedom. Oh, she wanted it so badly, it hurt her. It was a low pain in her gut, growing by the hour, by the minute, as the seconds ticked; she desired nothing more than to speak without the muscles of her own mouth rebelling against her; to write her cynical little heart out; to say what she really meant instead of having to twist and torture every sentence into something that was socially acceptable; and how the list went on...
At great length she strained to sit forward. It was becoming nearly unbearable. The urge to put her thoughts on paper, or even put them to use, was strangling her. Slowly tottering to both feet as if she were decades older, she walked bent, bones creaking, searching for a slip of blank paper and a non ink-splattered pen. When she came upon a sheet of water-color parchment, with only a small doodle several months old of a rusted key, a hungry look came over her face; a hungry but also somewhat joyous look, for here was a small taste of reprieve at long, long last.
“I'm glad you wrote back,” she began in a heavy, fervent hand. After a pause, and unconsciously gnawing on the pen cap, she continued in an apologetic fashion. “I really am. I'm just feeling oddly bitter for no reason what-so-ever, and I have a tendency to want to tear things apart, piece by piece, as if I'm doing some excruciating anatomy cross-section, and oh God, I know I'm terrible. I still have hours of work ahead of me so I really can't explain wanting to write to you at the moment, but I do want to, so here I am, muttering away and making no sense.” She stopped again, and glanced at the books with a silent wince. She made a jerky movement as if to scratch out everything she had just written, but fought against the urge and went on. “Peter, dear, I've been thinking, and maybe I'll wake up; maybe my brain will re-wire itself (it does every now and then, you know) but I honestly don't know if we're right for each other. I mean, I love you dearly, and I feel like I've said this sentence a hundred thousand times over the past century, but I really think it might be healthier if we were just friends. And I do quite realize that those are the words that can haunt a fellow for days, and I'm sorry for saying them, but its true. Maybe I am half out of my mind. And just maybe I'm not.
But the truth is, I love you, and I want the best. For both of us. Even if that means taking a step back.”
And it was here that she burst into tears, and finished the letter with, “I do love you, don't ever doubt that...” but it was too much. With trembling hands, she ripped the words to shreds, and watched them fall to her floor, like bleeding snow flakes. Then with no restraint what-so-ever, she succumbed to her tears, and watched the deepening shadows on her apartment walls as night fell all around.
