Rosemary and Rue | Love Reason's Without Reason

We were supposed to be a single soul - two distincts, division none - existing in an airtight space. Everything else is just background noise when I'm in his embrace.

Photo by Klara Kulikova on Unsplash

The warmth of the boy from the brook began to oscillate with the shadow of the man he had become - an unpredictable, Jekyll and Hyde existence that played out in their ghastly duality.

One moment he was the tender soul of her memories; the next, a remote stranger with a lethal possessiveness.

He hath a double tongue within one mask; one to speak fair of heaven, and one to hale her down to hell.

He was, at other times, a Greek statue in his perfection - so beautiful, so unreal, so polished like white marble, and yet so utterly inscrutable.

His lethal elegance reared its head the afternoon they ran into an old schoolmate in town.

At the mere sight of her, a nostalgic warmth flooded the man's face. He was already hurrying forward, a greeting half-formed on his lips before she had even begun to place who he was.

But Duroy was faster. He didn't recognize the face at all. Before the man could finish his sentence, Duroy interceded - slipping between them with a shadow's fluid speed to bar his path and cut the man's words short.

With a countenance too perfect for the living and too cold for the light of day, he stood his ground with a deadly, cool composure.

Disdain and scorn rode sparkling in his eyes, misprising what they looked on.

He had no need to snarl to show his teeth; his presence alone was a silent death warrant that made the man pray for an exit.

From then on, the stranger turned and fled every time they crossed paths in town.

On other days, that quiet threat sharpened into a bruising grip. He would grab and drag her away for nothing more than a few words to another man.

What is that whispering? That leaning, cheek to cheek... did their noses just meet? Like they were kissing with inside lips? No. That can't be nothing. It's never nothing.

That iron composure would shatter at the moments they were alone. He would make a scene of it, becoming ugly with jealousy and losing his composure entirely.

Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers' tears, he would push her away with a harsh word, only to collapse moments later into her lap.

Daily Prompts for FreeWriters

©Britt H.

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