Meeting After Midnight.

Hours after midnight the light illuminated from his phone.  His eyes strained wide, the otherwise darkened room seemed to extenuate the small ray of light, reaching its grip around the crevasses and cracks that the night holds close to its chest.    A message read that he was needed; it was a familiar voice, one that he heard as he read its texts.  He had not seen her in years, a lost love, someone who in his mind was stoic and was always on a pedestal.  He couldn’t call her an old flame but he wished that he could.  They had never crossed the borderline of friends and lovers but they both had wanted to.  The text was suspicious for Chris, it didn’t seem to add with what he knew of her.  She had sent it on whim, seeing a number on her phone after drinking too much and becoming far too sober after.  Melody’s message wasn’t profound or clever but he texted her back.  Within an hour they had met up again.  They walked familiar streets that they had long left behind them, they hadn’t even realised that they were meeting up where they last left.  Outside a lost and forgotten library where they last hugged.  He hoped she would kiss him, she hoped he wouldn’t try, it’s always harder to say goodbye and kiss for the first time, she knew that an opportunity long awaited and suddenly lost is not an opportunity worth thinking of.  As soon as they saw each other they hugged and held each other tight.
“You’re back” Chris spoke, smelling her hair to let every memory come back.
“You’re still here” She kept her grip, refusing to let him go.  She had missed him.
“For a few days I am yeah.  I’m gone again next week it’s a job in Tanzania....” he stayed silent knowing she would fill the space between his words.
“You’ll probably break apart if you stayed still”, she smiled.
“Probably, yeah”.
A strange thing happened that night.   Without a second thought by either of them as they began walking the backs of their hands brushed against each other.  Only a few years ago their natural impulses would be to flee apart, however this time their hands cupped.    He thought it was strange to finally hold her hand, he had imagined it, hoping it would be crass, uncomfortable, calloused from the years of living.   Instead he found they were soft, cushioning his palms, his hand vanishing with the locks of her fingers.   Melody hadn’t planned to hold his hand either, but she had spent so long thinking every scenario through this one time she wanted to just let herself loose.  She had never felt so safe before, she never knew she could feel so protected from holding hands, she had never felt so secure before, she looked at Chris. 
“I’m sorry for texting.  I know it’s late I just needed to talk.  You know when you just have no one to talk to? When everything around you just wants to drink, that everything has to include drink?”
“The drawbacks being English I think that no matter how old I get, if I ever want to do something it seems to always end up at the pub or getting wasted, like you have to drink.  I definitely know how you feel. 
Hey Melody.  Don’t get me wrong but we’ve not spoken in years, why tonight?”
“Honestly? I’m just fed up, I’m exhausted from bullshit, I’m happy with what I’ve done with my life but I’m not happy with where I am.  It feels like all the world is just a fucked up shit filled mess and you’re the only I could think of who I enjoyed going through the shit with.  I just thought you’d get it   Is that fucked up?”.
“I guess not.  In a stupid way I’ve been hoping that if I just waited in one place long enough then someone would notice that I’m here.  Hell, I even started going to this cafe every day, just reading a paper, hoping that if I went in there enough someone would approach me, ask who I was.  You ever just reflect on your own life and realise that you’re doing it all wrong that bit too late?  That’s me, these past few months”.
“But I thought you were going to Tanzania, you’ve got that to look forward to haven’t you?”
“Going away, coming back again, starting from nothing.  You can’t help but feel it’s for all the wrong reasons sometimes.  Then I think, ‘oh wait, I’ve just gone to a cafe everyday to try hopelessly to make a friend’.  I guess I’ve got Tanzania but sometimes I can’t help but want something constant.  Anyway, why is your life a shit storm?  I thought you were enjoying London?”
“You would think that.  And in a lot of ways I am but people in the city seem to always have an agenda, like no matter how close you feel you’re getting to someone they’re moments away from shitting all over you”.
“That’s not London, that’s just life”.
“I just want something, someone constant...”. 
“Yeah”.
Consistency was becoming a luxury in their lives.    Too long had they followed their hearts when they wanted to finally follow each other they found that they couldn’t.   Watching the sunrise they shared a kiss, savouring each passing second. 
“When I’m back”, Melody began.
“Yeah we’ll meet again.  We’ll try start something”.
“Haven’t we already?”
“Where’s this going?  Is it going anywhere?”
“I honestly don’t care.  As long as we’re both together, maybe we’ll be friends, maybe we’ll be lovers.  Just don’t forget”.
Melody walked off leaving Chris sitting on his own wondering if he was still in his bed.  He closed his eyes hoping that when they were to open again he would still be watching the sunrise, so he would know that he had gained a flame in his life that so desperately needed that light. 
Melody smiled as she walked away, she knew that somewhere in the world, even if it wasn’t where she was she had someone who got how fucked up life can be, and that was enough for her.  She thought about whether she would see him again.   Knowing it would be too confusing to even consider she blocked out all her thoughts and breathed in the morning air.  She walked away that knowing that at least that day would be less fucked up than all the rest.