Maz fumbles with the key outside their flat and keeps missing the lock. When the door finally opens, a disappointed sigh leaves her.
Home sweet home. Then why does it feel like you’ve stepped over the wrong threshold instead?
Eli follows her in, and the click of the door shutting sounds quieter than the fridge buzz from the kitchen.
Maz switches the light on. The bare bulb flares, white and bright, before it crackles and dims as the muffled thrums of a bassline and drums bleeding through the ceiling make the lamp tremble.
She looks up at the wires inside the glass that struggle to keep a glow.
‘Teardrop’ again? Do they listen to anything else? Oh well… fitting, really, since you’re apparently unable to feel the beat of your very own heart without help. Stop thinking about it.
Eli sheds his jacket and hangs it on the coat tree. The hook reacts with a loud squeak as if a heavier hand were dragging it down. The sound rings out with an echo more suitable for a larger room than the slim hallway they stand in. The rack’s shadow forks into a taller and wider silhouette, neither a man nor a door. It reforms without waiting for his eyes to focus.
He stares at the wall where the figure was a second ago.
Right. Because all we were missing was shadow theatre in weak light. It’s that sort of night, obviously, where it also has to feel like the hall’s somehow stretched slightly longer than before. Completely standard hallway behaviour. Move on, if you can.
A drop of leftover rain from Maz’s hair drips onto her cheek as she hangs up her coat. She slumps against the wall, her hand running across her pocket where the mint tin used to be.
You wanted it gone. You need it yesterday.
They trade glances and make the unspoken decision to ignore the fridge humming louder by the second, or the bathroom door beside Eli that holds itself at a dropped angle.
The window in the lounge down the hall catches their attention when Maz lifts her hand, poised to wipe the raindrop from her face. Her reflection stalls, its eyes turning gold from brown. Eli lifts his chin; the man in the glass doesn’t bother at all.
“Do you see–” She points ahead with a trembling finger.
“Yeah.” A sigh more than an agreement.
He lets a quiet curse slip as he walks into the lounge. The back of his hand hits the switch by the wooden archway that leads into the kitchen, turning on both the kitchen light and the wall lamp in the front room.
Maz follows him but stops after taking her first step through.
What happened to the colours?
The couch past the kitchen doorway holds a brighter orange in the window’s reflection on its side. The TV that hangs on the wall opposite shows the carpet carrying a deeper blue on its reflected surface.
She turns away and veers towards the kitchen.
The ceiling bulb fades to a weaker glow as she approaches the countertop. She reaches for the kettle, holding it at a subtle slant, shaking it as if to check for any water left inside. Its shadow on the tiles underneath behaves according to its own laws of its own nature as it stretches in reverse, towards the light. She lets the kettle drop back into place before slapping the power on and walking out into the lounge.
Eli, already seated on the couch, forces his eyes to stay glued to the carpet. She flops down beside him and finds a landing spot for her head on his shoulder, almost hovering without letting it fully rest.
The static snaps between them again. A simultaneous gasp escapes them, but neither makes a move.
He taps his chin on repeat as their reflections in the window next to them keep interrupting his line of sight.
O…kay. How am I supposed to move on when I’m clearly waiting for the reflections to pull the next trick? Not that the mirrors have been enough already today.
Her knee jitters as her heel thumps its own argument.
Say something. Ask anything that doesn’t make you sound like you’re climbing the walls for that scale. Right. Now. “Did you lock the–”
His attempt at a smile dissolves before it can take hold.
“Let’s not…” He trails off as the reflection in the window doubles them, then corrects itself.
She angles her head towards him and sees the window past his profile until Eli’s hand rests on her temple and shields her gaze.
What if you don’t need it? Maybe all you need is each other.
One second, Eli strokes her temple, and the next, Maz swings herself onto his lap, leaving him with no choice but to grunt in surprise and catch her.
Her weight settles on his legs when she pins him to the cushions and cages his hips with her knees. She frees the clip from her bun and throws it aside, letting her hair cascade down.
She closes her eyes.
What are you doing? This is stupid.
He answers with a quiet laugh and a hand that spreads across her back, pulling her in, to the point where their hearts could swap beats.
We’re here. We’re still here. I can stay here.
They sit forehead to forehead. The rest of the room stays behind Maz’s dark veil of locks draped on either side of their faces. It holds until the damp strands of her hair begin to slide towards his ear before the room and its windowful of reflections peek through in slices.
She presses her mouth to his with a firm push. His breath hits her lips as if he has run a marathon.
The form they fashion between them holds even as the window catches them at an angle where their reflections leave a strip of untouched air, remaining unbridged despite their own effortful kiss.
When Maz’s eyes flutter open for a brief moment, she catches the gap in the reflection.
“Don’t look.”
Are you warning him or yourself?
“I’m not. Stay with me.”
“I’m trying.”
The lamp dims while the room begins to feel as if it tilts until both the couch and the floor lose their certainty about which way should in fact be the right way up.
They lean in again. Her fingers climb into his curls. The burn mark of his thumb brushes the corner of her mouth as he tries to redraw the moment by touch alone. Warmth builds where their chests meet until it staggers.
His hand travels down and stops by the scar on the side of her neck.
I’m having a massive sense of déjà vu. Unless… we’ve done this, exactly this, a very long time ago.
Her lips pause, motionless and cold against his.
No, then. All you need is more than just each other, apparently.
Maz breaks away with a curse bitten off in half. Eli rests his head against her brow.
“I hate this.” Her whisper gets lost under the kettle’s rattle.
The rain quickens. The pattering of the drops on the window sounds too insistent on being far too random.
Eli starts to turn his head to the glass before he stops himself and locks his gaze on the ceiling instead. As he stares, the wires above, hanging unconnected to any lamp, seem to be pulling further away.
Maz sits back on his legs with her face turned away, angled to the floor. She keeps an eye on her shadow on the carpet as it folds inward and ripples into dark, indistinct figures that reconsider their outlines. Her gaze lifts back to him.
“Still here?”
His hand slipping into his pocket serves as a nod. He holds the mint tin as his fingers run across the lid’s edge.
I said I’d stop. I always say I’ll stop. I also said I’d never let her do this alone.
He takes the tin out and turns it in his hand. The embossed design of a snake winding around the ‘V’ on top stares back at him. He flips open the lid and reveals the last Viper scale that lies inside, the glow of the wall lamp bending across its sleek green and black surface.
Maz fixes her gaze on the scale, not noticing her fingers giving a restless twitch.
Say no. Say yes. Either way, it owns you.
Eli tips the tin towards her.
“You want to…?”
She almost laughs, a puff of air leaving her, nothing more than a splintered little thing.
“Don’t you?”
He shakes the scale into his hand and drops the tin into his lap between them. The scale rolls on to the centre without a wobble in its path. He takes a deep breath and presses his thumb to the scale to crack it through the middle. It splits so cleanly that the halves look flawless in his palm, as if this had always been their shape and this had always been where they belonged.
“Half for you.” He holds them out, his words flowing out smoother than his scrunched expression should allow.
Maz looks at the halved scales before taking one between her fingers. Its partly translucent centre shows a small dent in the wall behind Eli like a dark hollow. She tips her half-scale onto the back of her tongue and swallows with a wince.
He watches her as he follows.
“Half for me.”
The metallic and bittersweet taste doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Their eyes land on the empty mint tin before finding each other’s as they wait for the hiss to arrive.
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