In Continuum.

She is a sweet girl, a really sweet girl. It's difficult sometimes to tag any other adjectives to her face and name, sometimes you feel like you should - as a boyfriend, you should. They always speak of those sweet words don't they? The way movie couples whispers fragile little words into each others' ears, as if speaking too loud would take them out of the moment. I'd like to be a good boyfriend, someone who makes her girl friends' jealous of, the kind that parents can be proud of. If it takes a vibrant vocabulary of words to describe my partner, I'd gladly memorize the whole dictionary from page one to the last. But there is something about her, something that gives me a sense of writer's block sometimes. The way no words come to your mind to describe a certain scenery, a particular sound or smell in the wind. You find yourself being inadequate, a little lost while you are staring at the blinking cursor on the computer screen. So you take out that handy little notebook you bring around wherever you go, because paper and pen are supposed to induce that writer in everybody - well, at least for me. But it doesn't work either, it's not working at all. There isn't a blinking cursor, but the emptiness behind the first sentence is killing me.

It's so hard to be anything and everything sometimes, especially when anything and everything encompasses a variety of words and colors to describe your partner. I'd like to say that she is eloquent, that she is elegant, that she is dazzling beyond beliefs. But I can't, I can't lie to her, and mostly myself. I can't bring myself to say anything more than the word 'sweet', or maybe also those condescending words of love sometimes when the moon is high and the mood is right. I just can't, I am not nearly as big a liar as I put myself out to be as a writer. A writer make up stories from real life, but they don't live their real lives like stories. My stories do not usually have a flawless perfect ending like those best-seller books out there on the shelves, but they are not exactly tragic Shakespeare endings either. It's just stagnant, like the deep breath before the plunge, like the skies before a great storm. Everything is in a constant, and she is just a very, very sweet girl. I start to ask myself what is the meaning of all this, where am I - we - going from here. What if this as good as it gets?

29th of December, 2007. Something happened at the traffic light changed my views of her forever. I'd like to think that she really enjoyed her escape to Paris with me, that she loved every single minute spent with me walking on the narrow streets. But I could tell, I could see in her eyes that she wanted to go home. The trip to the tower told me everything I needed to know, because she was just sick and tired of the trip altogether. It wasn't her idea in the first place, just my stubbornness to see Europe, to see the Louvre in its full glory and the catacombs in its underground darkness. She's always liked Rome, preferred Rome, adored Rome, even though she's only really been to Rome in her dreams and saw it in travel brochures. She's a Pisces, she is dreamy and hopeful. She is stubborn most of the time, but she gives in to me most of the time - too. That is because, she is sweet, and because she is sweet. I am running out of words again, but that is how she is. You can never really find her complaining about room service or grumbling about taxi charges. She's the kind of partner you would want on a holiday trip overseas, because she gives in to anything and indulges in everything. Who wouldn't want a person like that? Such a sweet little thing, and I am running out of words again.

The truth is, I would have liked it very much if she actually threw a tantrum in the middle of the streets, screamed her head off right in the middle of the foreign crowd and cursed at me for bringing her to Paris rather than Rome. I would have liked that, because it would have been more realistic, more real. Less of those artificialities, those fake smiles and sweet talks. There is nothing wrong with those, nothing wrong with that. Everybody likes to be pampered, even if the other party is doing it via words. But sometimes you just wonder if that person is truly feeling the way she is showing, or just the complete opposite altogether. It's hard to tell, especially with sweet people. Sweet people hide things very well, because they assume that you think that they are sweet, and thus take them for granted. You believe whatever they tell you, or at least that is the common illusion of sweet people. There is nothing wrong with her, nothing at all. I'd very much like to tell her just how sweet she is right now, thirty-six thousand feet in the air and seven thousand miles away from home. But I can't, not just because it'd be a lie, but also because she is sleeping next to me on the plane right now. She is sleeping, she hates to be woken up in the middle of her sleep. But she won't complain if you do, she won't say a single nasty word. She won't even give you a dirty look, those unbearable stares. Why? Because she is sweet, and I can't do a single thing about it.

That's how it is between people, some people are just too nice to show you that they hate you from the inside out and the outside in. They are too nice to show you just how screwed up you are a person, so they make you feel good about yourself by being so damn intolerably nice. Then the day comes, it always comes, when you are sitting a feet or two away from that person and you start to wonder if that person is where she is because she is just too nice to tell you that she doesn't want to stay. After all, you think about those intolerable things that you have done, or have not done at the same time. You start to wonder just how it is possible for anybody to tolerate a person like me, but there she is. Here she is. We need warmth, a thick coat in the blizzard. We need a little bit of honesty, just that little frankness we don't see too often anymore. We see advertisements of cosmetics, slimming pills, actors and actresses with their hinds bigger than basketballs and their waists thinner than a wine glass. They are all facets aren't they, just little illusions we create for ourselves and one another to make the world a better place. There are massacres, there are genocide, there are assassinations and there are rapes, there are murders, and then there are these little lies we tell ourselves on a day to day basis. It's a vast contrast, it's almost too ridiculous to even consider it a problem in relative, but we are only human, and we crave for warmth. A little honesty for me, my dear, a little honesty from time to time. Give me a little bitter, give me a taste of sour, so I can learn the beauty of sweet. But here you are, a feet or two away from me, breathing softly into the hollow of my neck. How intolerable, both yourself and me. Your cute little face, your beautiful soft cheeks like bubble gum, my crude and vile thoughts about you - what a devil you have turned me into.

The plane jerked, and then it jerked again. The seat belt lights come on, someone is saying something somewhere about some turbulent thing. She awakes from her wakeful slumber and she is looking me deep into my eyes. Stop looking like that honey, you are making my thoughts falter, you are breaking my train of thought. You should have kept on sleeping, you should have remained where you are. You shouldn't be looking at me right now, stop looking at me with those beautiful eyes of yours, those eyes dyed in the color of lavender - spring. Seriously, you should stop staring at me in the eyes, I cannot concentrate on my thoughts anymore. I feel ashamed now, almost guilty, like somebody being caught red-handed at a local mall, or a celebrity taking one of those ugly mug shots knowing that it is going to be in every possible tabloid in less than six hours. I feel naked now, stop looking at me. I had nasty and horrible thoughts about you honey, I thought about me hating you, I thought about despising your little means and ways. Oh, really, stop looking me in the eyes. I cannot take your accusations, I cannot take your non-judgmental looks. I should be judged, I should be tried. I should be hung in a public square and left to rot in the sun and consumed by giant crows and vultures. I harbored thoughts about you, I doubted you, doubted me, doubted this thing in between us. This - thing, I am running out of words again. I can't explain it, because I can't touch it. I can't touch it, because it is so fragile, so frail. It's like a princess wandering the streets without a crown after being exiled. Still beautiful, still radiant with her royal light, but dying...dying...still beautiful...but dying. I hate myself, stop breathing into my neck. Baby, I'm not worth your touch or your time. Stop looking at me, I cannot do the same to you like every other time.

You reach over to my side of the armrest, your fingertips brushed so gently over the hair on the back of my arms. There is still that dreaded turbulence, and you are scared out of your wits. You are telling me we should have went to Montana, at least we could have drove there. I am telling you that we should have stayed home and made love all day, and you slapped my thighs teasingly, not because you disagreed but because it was like a secret you wanted to be kept between us. You are telling me how much you enjoyed Paris, and how it would be a shame for the holiday to end with a tragic plane crash in the middle of the Atlantic. I am telling you that you are silly, and I am telling you that you are thinking too much. You are looking at me with your lavender eyes again, you are telling me that I think too little. Anything could happen, anything could fall apart at any one time - maybe that is what makes our love so beautiful. I am telling you that a plane in the middle of a turbulence is not exactly the best place to be talking about such morbid things, and I am pointing to that little girl across the aisle who is crying her eyes out right now and telling you that you are scaring her. You are telling me that there isn't a right time or a wrong time for such things, and I am now confused because I am unsure of what 'things' you are talking about. You are leaning closer to me, I can almost taste that sweetness in your lips. The familiar scent, the innocence that I first fell in love with at the corner bookstore. You are going to say something, you are going to tell me that 'thing'. "I love you," you said. "and there isn't a better or worse time for me to tell it to you."

She is a sweet girl, a really sweet girl. It's difficult sometimes to tag any other adjectives to her face and name, sometimes you feel like you should - as a boyfriend, you should. But with the turbulence pushing and shoving the plane around thirty-thousand feet in the air and your face leaning so close to mine - what can I say? You are a sweet girl, and I love you for that. And then I knew, I knew, I found the right word for you. I found, more than a word really. I found you.