Ani kissed goodbye to Marti just once on the lips. The fireworks she imagined over the bay were made up of potential energy. The sea and the sky were both mirrors to this magical happening, catching the light and sharing it with the birds and the fish. Their lips parted slowly, regretfully. This was, at once, a beginning and an end. It was a door, ajar. The lights glimmered on the water for a second after they'd dissipated in the air. Trains tore them apart. The concrete floors in the station still pattered with feet, as they had before, but now Ani could only hear the roaring of the train as it cut through the air and tore a line across the South coast. The journey was to her, leaving a charcoal line in its wake, a separating of A from B.
The phone jumped, and lit up, as she had hoped. The small table on the train buzzed against its back.
'I really like you', is all it said.
Ani arrived back to the Hove apartment, dropped her keys into a shoe by the front door and slid off her heels and put them under the desk in the foyer. As she hung up her bag on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, she noticed the light. The kitchen was lit up, as was the living room; the whole house was bright enough to see, apart from the creeping darkness at the top of the stairs. She walked through the house unafraid - it couldn't be burgulars - and found Lorrie on the couch, watching a DVD on her DVD player.
'Still have my key', she said, in monotone but with a smile reaching out. Her body was rigid, facing the TV, only the neck poised to Ani. They both sat on the couch, watching the twentysomethings playing teenagers in love, and slowly their bodies gave way and relaxed and conversation became more fluent. Laughs and wine later, it had been like nothing was ever the matter between them. The red-head princess and the guy from the wrong side of the tracks got it on, and that barrier broke all theirs too. Kissing seemed natural. Like they had kissed yesterday, or the day before.
The charcoal line widened.
