| (Last Updated June 2012) | (Last Updated June 2012)
The cops outside are calling for surrender. He's dreamed of this moment, admired her for so long; he can't imagine leaving now. Outside of this moment, outside of this dream... Nothing else matters. He walks to the girl, brushes a thumb against the tear-streaked apple of her porcelain cheek. She flinches away from his touch, straining against the coiled ropes.
The electricity goes out abruptly; they're bathed in the steadily flashing police lights. He kneels down to her level and whispers, "Don't worry, love; I won't let you die alone."
She whimpers as he leans down to kiss her forehead.
Their passion was immediate, consuming, unstoppable. She was so in love at every moment of every day, their future all wrapped up, expanding to forever. At night she imagined them old, sitting on a love seat and holding hands as they told their grandchildren about how magical it was.
The passion waned. The days grew more ordinary. He strayed. Yet he was the one who left.
Things were better without him -- she worked harder, achieved more than she ever expected. Soon she didn't miss him, but alone at night she missed that imaginary life she had grown to love.
The sun shines through gossamer curtains, their book bags discarded and forgotten in the corner of the bedroom. They giggle like children, swear like adults, and trade dreams like currency. When they grow up they're gonna party so hard, they're gonna be artists, and rockstars, and so totally famous -- in the way only dreamers can be.
They trade paperbacks, gossip about classmates, complain about teachers. Knowing that they're safe, they hold hands as they admit their fears and shames.
It doesn't matter what they would eventually become; in those after school moments they were anything, everything. They were together.
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