The driveway to the house approached on their right and Lance turned into it. The vehicle slid beneath the canopy of trees beginning to turn the colors of autumn, beautiful and stark in the gray light of the afternoon storm. The house came into view and Lance pulled to a stop behind Mary’s small Honda Civic. He put the shifter into park and sat back in his seat, listening to the rain whisper on the roof above them.
“You don’t have to feel bad about not seeing me anymore, I won’t hold it against you,” Lance said after a while. Heaviness formed by their combined breathing, fog beginning to creep up the edges of the windows. He saw Mary look over at him, a sharp turning of her head.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because who would want this? You haven’t even known me for more than a few weeks and I’ve already led you down one insane road after another.”
She leaned closer to him, across the center console. “What did you see when you imagined me for the first time, before we met?” she asked.
Lance turned toward her. She was close. Almost as close as they had been the night before on the beach, but the darkness had robbed him of his vision and of her beauty. He looked at her eyes and said the first thing that came to his mind.
“I thought you were beautiful. Alive and so happy. Like nothing could ever hurt you. You were the sum of more than anything I’d ever seen.”
A beat of time, and then she closed the distance between them. Her lips found his before he’d had a chance to lean in. They were cool and soft, and they pressed against his mouth with an honest sweetness he hadn’t known existed. Then they were gone, and she leaned back into her seat, a bemused expression on her face.
“Thank you,” she said, her eyes never leaving his.
“For what?” he said, a little breathless.
“For being who I thought you were,” she said. He had almost no time to let this absorb before she grasped the door handle and let the sound of the storm interrupt the moment.
“Will you be okay here alone?” she asked, genuine concern flashing across her face.
It took him only a second to answer. “Yeah, just fine. I should get some writing done.”
She nodded. “Call me if anything happens. And even if it doesn’t.”
He smiled. She stepped into the rain and slammed the door behind her. He watched her run to her car and jump inside. He didn’t move until the Honda’s taillights had faded completely from view down the drive. His head swiveled toward the house. It stood in the gloom, a mass of stone, impassive to the thoughts and questions that he hurled at it. He examined the windows, half expecting to see someone looking back at him, but nothing stood there. Only darkness and the edges of a few motionless drapes.
He felt as if he could sit in the car for the remainder of the day, the inner workings of his brain keeping him lashed there, content with the faint taste of Mary’s lips that still lingered on his own. After a few minutes, he rousted himself and exited the SUV. The cold points of rain needled him through his shirt, and he hurried to the front door and stepped inside.
Everything lay just as he’d left it. He didn’t really know what he’d expected—objects dangling from the ceiling, a message written in blood on the wall? He made his way across the foyer and into the main area of the house, throwing a look at the bathroom door as he went through. It still stood open; nothing had shut it in his absence. The alcove shone with raindrops that refused to run from the curved glass panes. Two ships were meeting far out in the lake, their sizes dwarfed by distance, and although he knew that they were in no danger of colliding, it still looked as if they would. He paused before his computer, watching the ships cross paths, expecting a great up-thrust of impact and a concussion of sound—even here in the house—of rending steel and the screams of those on board.