A Hold

She had that funny feeling in the pit of her stomach. Rare. A sense of giddiness, a mismatch between reality, and the perception of it. Everything was floating, and then moving, a little too fast, for her to get a hold of them.

Tears were shed, sympathetic looks exchanged, goodbyes ringing in her ears. But this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She had worked too hard for these three days. Too hard.

She looked up through the haze as the auto honked, waiting to bid her farewell. She slowly started towards it, away from the three days she had dreamt about for months. The giddiness increasing, the mismatch, reaching epic proportions.

Somehow her legs stopped moving. It took her a few seconds to register what had happened. And then it hit her, washed over her in waves so strong that thoughts were no longer prevalent.

She turned around. She was conscious of walking fast, very fast, in a direction never intended, tracing her steps back to the one place she stayed away from. She felt her hand rise of its own accord, and knock.

A creak of the bed. A rustle of the bed sheet. The click of the latch.

He looked at her.

She looked at him.

And for a second, everything made sense, and maddened all senses beyond control.

She held him. Tight. For dear life.

Energy. Emotion. Assurance.

For one brief instant, thoughts and emotions, presence and absence, solid and amorphous blended into one, screaming in pain, crying with elation.

And then she turned around and left. Left an ever-blurring world behind.

There were no thoughts anymore. Just the feeling of the last touch.

A few seconds, an eternity.

A secret unleashed by two souls, caged and tortured by their bodies.