Glow by Christopher J. Dwyer

She slides a hand around his waist and buries her face in the comfort of his black sweater. He takes a deep breath, rejects the urge to push her away. Full streaks of sunlight hit his back and the warmth slithers into his bones. “This isn’t going to end,” she says. “Please tell me you’re not going to walk away.”

The man closes his eyes.

“It’s too much for me, Bri,” he says. “I can’t sneak around anymore.”

The first of her tears falls and the man feel the thrush of a thousand knives in his heart. The sun begins to set behind him and he knows that if he doesn’t say another word, she’ll hold him until the last of her breaths.

“I’ve always loved you more than I loved him,” she says. “You know that. You can’t look me in the eye and tell me otherwise.”

He pulls her head into his chest and a waft of raspberry cream shampoo strikes him, memories of the morning, memories of his secret world. “Bri, she knows about us. She knows that this has been going on for as long as it has.”

The woman continues to cry. “I’ll leave him, leave this city. I have to be with you, baby.”

He stares ahead, the blue and green blur of passing cars. Standing on this sidewalk, the one where he so many times held her hand, he doesn’t want to leave. He doesn’t want to open the wound of life without her.

“I can’t keep living this way,” he says. “She wants all or nothing from me, Bri. What can I say to that? Do you want me to throw that part of my life away? Do you want me to live on the street, Bri? Tell me.”

She pushes the man away, places a hand across her forehead. Her migraine hints of despair, hints of the days and months and weeks that she thinks he’ll throw away. The woman stares at him.

“I wake up every fucking night next someone that I haven’t loved in years,” she says, “and I’m starting to think that’s what the rest of my life is going to be like.” She begins to walk away, the beginnings of the late spring breeze capturing her hair. The man stands in silence for a moment before running after her. He scoops an arm across her neck, the other around her waist, pulls her in and kisses the top of her ear.

“I don’t want it to be like that,” he says. They stand for three minutes, embracing the soft touch of anguish, hoping that neither will let the other go. He squeezes the cotton of her tank-top, then pats it down with his fingers. “I love you, Bri, more than anyone else than I’ve ever known. It won’t end tonight, I swear.”

She coughs, pulls away from the man, but he won’t let go. She frees herself and sits on the cold pavement of the sidewalk, legs crossed as she bites her fingernails. Small bits of orange polish broken between her teeth.

“I have that feeling in my chest,” she says after spitting part of her fingernail to the ground, “the one where it seems like my heart is burning. The one where even my dreams are on fire.”

The man grips the edge of the lamppost, pushes his back to its sturdy metal. “I’m not going home to her, Bri. Not when I’m feeling like this. Not when I know that I’m close to losing you forever.”

She shakes her head, pulls a finger out of her mouth. “If you really thought that way, we wouldn’t be here tonight. There’d be no struggle, no fighting. All I want is you and what I want isn’t going to happen.”

He peels the light green pieces of dry and cracked paint from the lamppost, squishes them between his fingers. “Bri, I love you. There’s nothing else I can say. It’s not just her that’s weighing on my mind. There’s someone else involved and it’s not an easy situation to deal with.”

She starts to cry again and all he can hear are her sobs, not even the brittle echoes of thunder sway him from seeing her break down. He rubs his hands together, green-tinted dust falling to the floor. The man kneels next to her and gently pulls her arm to his chest.

“I love my son, Bri,” he says. “He deserves a better life than I ever had. I can’t hurt him. I can’t let his life become an unstable mess.”

The woman swings herself over to him, falls into his grasp. “Sometimes I wish that I never met you,” she says. “Sometimes I think that life would be so much easier if I accepted being unhappy.”

The man nods then looks to the sky. “It’s going to rain soon.”

She ignores him, clutches the edge of his shirt. “I need you to do something for me,” she says. “It’s the only way this is going to work.”

He looks down at her, smears of purple mascara in two jagged lines on her cheeks. “No. I’m not even considering that again, Bri. That’s too fucking dangerous.”

He remembers the last time they talked about it, the red glow of a candle on the floor of her living room, an empty bottle of vodka on its side in the middle of the coffee table. The wool blanket pulled halfway over naked and pale body. He didn’t want to hear about it again, but he knew that it was only a matter of time before she brought it up.

She’s silent, picking at the fuzz on his sweater.

“We’d get caught, Bri, I know we would.” The man kisses her on the forehead, aware of the raindrops beginning to fall. “I don’t want to take that chance.”

She returns the kiss, gazes into his tired eyes. “You have to. It’s the only way we’re going to be together,” she says, both of her hands on his face. “I love you.”

He feels the rain beating down on them but doesn’t move. They sit on the sidewalk, wet and ready to give up everything, the storm of desperation raging overhead. He thinks about that night, the glow of the candle in her eyes. There’d be no other way.

“I have to do it,” he says. “I’m going to do it soon, Bri.”

She smiles and bites his bottom lip. “It’s the only way,” she says.

Christopher J. Dwyer is a noir writer from Boston. He can be reached through his official website: www.christopherdwyer.com.