Momentary Thing by Isabelle

I wanted to write up something new and interesting that’s been tinkering around my brain all week, but unfortunately, as my entire house is currently in boxes and I’m moving tomorrow, I couldn’t find the time to do it justice. Maybe for my next Friday freebie I’ll give it a whirl. 🙂 In the meantime, I thought I’d leave you guys with a small scene from a WIP I’m really excited about.

“It’s starting.”

I pulled my knees closer to my chest and wrapped my arms around them finding a measure of comfort in the faded scent of laundry detergent permeating his cotton bedspread.

“Not yet. There’s still time. We can try something else…”

I reached out to stop his desperate pacing; only we never made contact. My fingers slid through his forearm as though they weren’t even there.

I snatched my hand back. He froze. The blood that rushed from his face left him pale. He ran shaking fingers through his disheveled brown hair.

“I’m not ready, Caelie. I’m just not ready.”

I tried to laugh, to put him at ease, but it came out a strangled howl that bordered on hysteria. “You don’t have to be ready. You’re not going anywhere.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You act as though this is goodbye forever. It’s not. We’ll see each other again-”

“We won’t. Not like this. Not the way we are right here, right now.”

I turned away from his powder blue eyes, from the awful sadness that shined in them begging me to change what couldn’t be undone.

“It’s for the best,” I whispered, leaning my cheek against my knees.

“Is it?” he asked, going back to pace the worn carpet of his bedroom.

“I can’t just let them die,” I forced out through clenched teeth.

“Some things are not in our power to change.”

“Well this is,” I snapped, turning away from him, “and I would change it again, a hundred times over if I had to.”

“You have no idea how dangerous this is, this playing with time. What you’ve done might change the entire course of history. Life as we know it now won’t exist.”

“I’m willing to live with those consequences if it means keeping them alive. Keeping all of you alive.”

“Fine. Forget the future. Let’s assume this goes exactly as planned. You get to disappear and forget any of this happened. You get to start over while I’m forced to live the rest of my life loving you. Forced to remember things you won’t even know existed between us.”

“Don’t do this.” I begged, angrily wiping tears from my quickly fading cheeks. “I don’t want to leave things like this.”

“And I don’t want to lose you.”

“It’s too late,” my voice broke, as I felt the change in time solidify. My surroundings became as intangible as dreams. “I’m already gone.”

“No, not yet,” he cried, rushing to my side. “There’s still so much I need to tell you.”

He held me tight, whispering promises I knew would never come, until I vanished into nothing in his arms.