Zander and I danced our night away letting the music take over our senses and lead our bodies on the dance floor. Not a care in the world, no thought in mind, just music and dance, it was a feeling, a rush of liberation as every fiber of my body let loose and listened to the flow of everything around me, to be in the flow and not just watching it from the riverbanks. Sometime way after midnight at the height of the crowd, Zander took my hand and gently ushered me out, using his body as a human shield as we went against the crowd of people still itching to get a piece of the night and the music.
We exited to the cold night of New York making me shiver and wrap my arms around myself. Zander hurriedly ushered me into his car and tucked me in the passenger seat before hurriedly running to the driver’s seat to turn on the engine and turn on the heating system of his car before driving off. I originally thought he was going to take me home already, but after we passed my turn, I looked at him.
“I think you just missed the turn” I informed him “Where exactly are we going?”
“Trust me you’re going to love it” he just looked at me with a wink and kept driving. I crossed my hands and stared at him with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m going to love it when I know exactly where we are going, or even what we’re going to be doing?” I huffed.
“That’s the beauty of a surprise Laura, it’s you not knowing the plan and reacting on the spot”
“I have never been good with that kind of concept” I looked outside the car, and incidentally my reflection got in the way staring right back at me. I outstretched my hand and opened the car window removing my reflection insight and letting the cold night air.
“Aren’t you cold”
“I am” I answered, slipping my hands underneath my armpits to warm up and crossing my legs to create more friction and body heat. With his hand still on the steering wheel, Zander leaned back and outstretched his free hand, trying to locate something in the back seat.
“Here put in on your lap to keep your legs warm” he said handing me a piece of clothing from the back seat. I looked at him and held it up, a navy-blue bomber jacket with white sleeves, yellow line trimming the neckline and cuffs together with a large letter C on the left chest. I turned it over to find letter written in cursive white outlined with yellow and black.
“Is this what I think it is?”
“It’s my old varsity jacket, from college”
“So, you just leave this old thing lying around your car?”
“Old thing? You should know that is my lucky jacket”
“Seriously, a lucky jacket“ I looked at him trying to hold back my laughter.
“You’re laughing now, but that jacket has seen so many trophies,”
“I bet it made all the girls swoon too, after a date, they’d see this lucky varsity jacket lying out in the back” I teased.
“For your information, I don’t just let anyone touch my lucky sweater, not even my mother,”
“I feel honored” I said and raised the neckline of the jacket to my nose.
“Although I’d be thankful if you made your mom an exception to the rule” I feigned disgust pinching the bridge of my nose, while placing it on my lap to cover my legs.
“Hey! It’s not that bad!”
Zander continued to drive until we were way passed the city, driving deep through the thick woods in the darkness of the night.
“Now I’m really worried where are you taking me” I asked him, we were already far from the city, the brightness of the lively city hidden behind the lush vegetation of the forest surrounding the roads.
“I told you it was a surprise”
“And that is what the serial killer scope you have worked on would say to his victims, and it was written in your words that it is inevitable for the story we’re working on to spill in on our personal lives”
“So, you do read my articles”
“That’s your take from that entire sentence, I think you completely missed out the part where I am starting to think you are imitating the serial killer from your last piece and I am about to be your victim”
“We’re almost there” he brushed off my concern and pushed through. Not that I was worried, if worse comes to worst, he can do anything and everything to me and I will still be the one returning.
“Here we are” he pulled up the car off the road and near the edge of the roadside, before slipping out of his seat in a hurry to cross car front and open my door.
“Thank you” I hand him his jacket before stepping out, holding on to his outstretched hand. I raided my head to finally look around where he had taken us.
And what a view it was. High up in the cliff, we were in perfect view of the entire New York City skyline. The lights of the city challenging the stars above, as the hustle and bustle of the city continued into the night.
“That’s not even the best part, here let me help you up” Zander called out to me. I approached him and right when I was in front of him, he places both of his hands on my hips and boosted me up, sitting me down on the hood of his car. Once I was full situated on the hood, with my legs outstretched dangling past the hood, he places his jacket on me, neatly covering my legs. Proud of his work he jumped on the hood next to me, making the car shake, his long legs dangling way, way past mine.
“Sooo, what are we waiting for exactly?” I asked him, but he just pressed his index finger against his lips.
“Just watch” He pointed past the New York City skyline. And right here before our eyes we watched as the colors of the sky began to shift, the cool colors giving way to the bright colors of the sun as it takes over the vast skies.
“It’s amazing Zander, but why?”
“What do you mean why? How about why not? In life this is probably the most certain thing. The night may last, and the darkness may be vast, but you can be sure to hope that the sun will rise, another day will come. A birth to something new that happens to us everyday” He faced me, explaining in zealous details. I crossed my legs under the lucky jacket and face him. I caressed his face with both my hands my thumb softly padding across his eyebrows, down his cheekbones and his jaws.
Nothing has changed
“It’s amazing, no it’s beautiful how you see the world” it is difficult to believe in that kind of beauty when you have lived as long as I did, seen the things I did and experienced the things I have. It is hard to believe in good when the only person you have ever loved, you lose in the most inhuman of ways. When the pain you have been suffering for almost an eternity was given to you by the people who you trusted to protect you. I wanted to cry, I wanted to mourn, I wanted to scream at him and shake him from his naïve beliefs. The world did not deserve him, the world doesn’t deserve him.
Yet it was because of his hope, his optimism, and his perseverance in his belief that there is still good even in the vilest of things and place, warmth in the coldest corners of the world and light even in the darkest places. It was because of those characteristics that drew me to him.
Our eyes locked as he placed his hand on my cheek, and leaned in close, I was drawn to him like he was fire and I was a helpless moth, content to die and burn so long as I get to be with him. If only the world was that kind. In one swift movement, he closed the gap between us, capturing my lips in his kiss. A sweet chaste kiss, he was gentle and sure, and I was desperate. Desperate to feel more, yet content to take whatever he was willing to give. His hand slowly lowered his touch to my neck his fingers stroking the skin on my neck, the strands of my hair caught in his touch tickling me. My arms slowly began to wrap around his neck. A kiss a single action, yet my heart burst into an explosion of emotion and memories.
But none of that mattered.
All that mattered was him, my world, my heart, my love.
I was ready to risk it all for him.
We spent the sunrise in each other’s embrace until Zander decided it was the perfect time to deliver me back to my home.
“Go get some rest, and I will be seeing you on Monday, which is tomorrow,” Zander is reminded as we stood on opposite sides of my apartment door.
“See you on Monday” I bid goodbye, Zander turning to leave, only to turn a full three hundred sixty degree back to me.
“Oh and by the way”
“What is it” he leaned in and captured my lips once more.
“You forgot this” he whispered against my lips and kissed me once more before dashing away leaving me dumbfounded and hanging on the door.