the Long Grey

She took a deep, full breath of night air and shivered.  He was coming. She and the Long Grey were old friends, though it had been awhile since his last visit.  Closing her eyes, she recalled his memory. He felt of a chilled melancholy, the lonely murmur of an unrequited hope and missing him.  Missing someone. Missing everyone.

It became just him and her whenever he came. Everyone else seemed rather far away, disappearing into their Sunday morning brunches, crowds of laughter and of family and all the other sunny things.

And yet, in a strange way, his presence comforted her.  She was used to him after all this time and grew unsettled when he stayed away too long.  Others would suggest someone they highly recommend for her to talk to, or ask her too many times if she was okay, so she kept him a secret.  Her secret come-and-go lover.

They first met when she was still very young.  Her sleep was listless even then. She would often climb out of her bedroom window once she could hear the beginning of her father’s rolling snores from down the hall, and they would lay on the dewy grass together, watching the stillness of the stars.  It started on nights like those, simple and quiet. He would leave in the mist of early dawn and she would sleep. But he grew jealous over the years. He stayed well into the afternoon some days, pleading with her to stay in the suffocating safety of her room.

She left him once.  In the dark of a bar in Chelsea, a stranger grazed her skin and she ignited.  Her eyes burned with hunger and the desire to be loved and once he kissed her, the fire that erupted from the deep places of her heart could not be subdued.  She shone brightly and hard and the stranger adored her for her flames. Together, they were fireworks and mischief and the whole world was warm. The stranger became a good man and the wildfire simmered to a gentle glow that kept away the cool melancholy.  And the Long Grey had been forgotten. But he never left. He waited patiently for her to come back to him. And one night in the bitterness of February while the good man slept beside her, the Long Grey slipped into her bed between them and she sunk into him once again.  The good man left. A faint glimmer, reminiscent of a long forgotten wildfire, remained in her eyes. Over the years, she crossed paths with many strangers who would reach for the glimmer, but the wildfire was long lost beneath the Long Grey.

Tonight was the same.  She could feel him in the chill that crept through the dark.  He settled in next to her on the edge of the roof, overlooking the city, and wrapped her in his arms.  She shuddered at his touch against her skin.

I’ve missed you, he murmured.  

She sighed and the glimmer in her eyes dimmed ever so slightly.

“Will you ever not return?”

Never.