11 years: Part 3

Next morning Brandon could not stay in his body. He rushed towards Karen's house which was at the foothills nearby. But she wasnt there. He knew where to find her. Karen was on the old concrete court behind the café, sleeves pushed up, hair tied loosely, the ball moving between her hands as if it understood her mood. She was not playing to win. She was playing to empty herself. The thud of the ball against the ground steadied her breath. Brandon stood watching for a moment, unsure if he was allowed to enter this version of her. Then he stepped forward, caught the ball mid bounce, and smiled with a shyness that surprised them both. They played without rules. A few shots, a few misses. At one point he moved too close, reaching for the ball, his arm brushing her waist. Karen froze for half a second, then laughed, the sound soft and unguarded. She spun away, skirt swaying, aware of her body in a way that was new and oddly innocent. His eyes followed her movement, not hungry, just present. When she tried to shoot, he stood behind her, correcting her posture without touching at first. Then, almost apologetically, his hands rested at her elbows. The contact was brief, careful, but something warm passed between them. She felt it settle low in her body, not urgent, not demanding, just awake. They stopped playing before either of them knew who had won. They sat on the steps with two coffees between them, knees almost touching. The conversation drifted, as it always did, toward books, toward the places where language breaks under the weight of longing. Kafka came up naturally. She spoke about his letters, the ache of wanting connection while fearing it. Brandon listened, then said quietly that Kafka wrote as if love was a door he could see but never fully enter. Karen looked at him then, really looked, and realised he was not speaking about Kafka alone. The silence between them grew thick, but not uncomfortable. Karen closed her notebook. “I come here when I want to disappear properly.” He stood close, then paused. “Before I touch you… I need you to know. This isn’t desire that wants to take.” She looked up. “Then what is it?” “Something older,” he said. “The need to become complete without crossing you.” “Then hold me,” she whispered. “Like that.” His arms came around her slowly. Karen exhaled. “This feels… whole.” “That’s because I’m not trying to own you.” She smiled against his chest. “Kafka would call this hunger without cruelty. Nabokov would forgive the precision.” Before leaving, she slipped a folded page into his pocket. “What did you write?” he asked. “Nothing finished,” she said. “Read it when you’re ready.” Later, alone, he opened it. One line only. This touch was a beginning disguised as restraint.

11 Years -Part 2. continued

Brandon returned and this time he did not stand. He sat beside her, close enough that the warmth of him changed the air. From beneath the counter he brought a bundle of papers, uneven, some folded, some stained with old coffee rings.

He placed them between them like an offering to Karen almost shy.

“These are not finished,” he said. “They never learned how to behave.” Karen smiled once, then began. She read slowly. Each page seemed to breathe. The writing was raw, unguarded, sometimes clumsy, sometimes exact in a way that made her chest ache. There were mothers who vanished without dying. Fathers who stayed but never arrived. Men who stood at windows, wanting and afraid of what wanting might cost. She held a tissue in her left hand, careful, so careful, that her tears would fall only onto paper meant for them. Not his. As she read, her body moved through quiet states. Sadness came first, low and familiar. Then excitement, the thrill of being trusted with something unfinished. Awe followed, surprising her with its gentleness. Beneath it all lived a soft sensual awareness. Not sharp. Not urgent. Just present. The sense of being near a living nerve. Brandon brought another cup of coffee without speaking. As he set it down, his fingers brushed her hair behind her ear. The gesture was small, almost absent minded, yet it stayed. Karen did not look up. Halfway through, she felt him watching her cry. When she glanced sideways, his eyes were wet too. He looked startled by himself, like someone caught speaking aloud in an empty room.

“Don’t hug me,” she said quietly. “Don’t make it cliché.”

He laughed, a sound that broke cleanly through the heaviness.

“To hug you,” he said, “I would have to purify every ounce of sin I have committed.”

Karen leaned closer. Not touching. Just closer. “Your sins,” she said, “are what made you reach where you are standing today. In front of me.” Something moved through him then. Not tenderness alone. Something older. His breath deepened. His body responded before his mind could arrange permission. Desire rose, primal and vivid, asking for action. He did nothing. He stayed. He breathed. Karen placed the last page down. “I have to leave now.” She stood. He did not stop her. That night, after the café closed and the snow had softened into silence, Brandon sat alone and wrote a letter to his father. He did not explain. He did not accuse. He wrote about a woman who read his words as if they were alive. About standing in front of someone without armor. About the strange holiness of restraint. He did not sign the letter. Outside, the city slept, unaware of what had almost been touched. Part-1: http://romshiwonder.blogspot.com/2026/01/11-years.html

11 years

Karen had learned, over time, the particular weight of unspoken things. They did not crush her. They rested on her, like a shawl worn in all seasons. For eleven years she had lived among half sentences and careful pauses. People spoke around her, not to her. They arrived with laughter, with half-baked attachments, with stories sharpened for telling. They left with equal softness. No one said the words that might have gathered her life into rest. Silence, then, became an object she tended. She carried it as one carries a sealed letter, turning it over now and then, tracing its edges, fearing what the opening might demand. She worked in a small archive near the river, where papers slept and names faded gently into time. In the evenings she attended a book reading workshop held above a closed cinema. The stairs creaked. The lights flickered. Chairs were arranged in a circle, not quite touching. People came to read, but more to be heard.

It was there that Brandon appeared, though he did not arrive in the way people usually arrive.

He did not announce himself with stories or glances. He sat, already present, as if he had been waiting for the room to catch up with him. He was large, not in size alone but in stillness.

His presence felt grounded, He would not flinch by any woman's beauty, he was so full and rooted inward without any boyish whim.

Karen shuddered. Brandon was looking at her face. Not her hands, not the page, not the space around her. Her face, as though he had arrived somewhere important and intended to remain.

A man like Brandon who seldom look at pretty women was gazing Karen with full wholesom gaze.

There was no rush in his gaze. It reminded her of reading Kafka slowly, or Nabokov with care, aware that speed would flatten what mattered most. After the reading, people gathered their coats. Chairs scraped. Mrs Hall, who always wore red scarves, complained about the cold. Jonah waved and disappeared down the stairs. Brandon approached Karen with a folded note. He did not speak. He did not watch her open it. He placed it in her hand and turned away, as though the act itself was complete. At home, Karen sat by the window where the city hummed softly below. She unfolded the paper. The words were few. At the end it said, Karen I love you. The sentence frightened her because of its lightness. It did not ask. It did not explain. It rested on the page without effort. She felt the old questions rise at once. How long. Why now. When will you leave. They shaped themselves easily, practiced from years of use. Then she recognized them as her own wound, speaking ahead of time, eager to protect itself. She slept badly. In morning there was snow all around. Karen walked anyway. She knew where Brandon’s café was, though she had never been inside. It was small, set back from the road, its windows pressed warm with light. Inside, the smell of coffee held the air steady. Brandon was behind the bar, sleeves rolled, hands sure. Karen did not sit. She handed him her note. He read it once. Then again. It said, If you promise that you will write everyday, I am going to stay with you forever.

His hands trembled before his face changed. Then his shoulders softened, as though something he had been holding finally set him down. Tears came without resistance. He took her hands, rubbing warmth back into them, and placed a cup of coffee between her fingers.

“I will be back,” he said quietly. “With a book we should read together.” “Only if you promise to read it out loud while I rest,” she replied. He did not ask what she meant. Understanding moved through him like recognition rather than surprise. He nodded once and disappeared through the back door into the snow. Karen remained where she was. The woman at the counter glanced at her, then away. The older man turned his paper the right way up. Outside, the snow continued its patient erasure. Karen held the cup, the heat, and the knowledge that some promises do not need explanation. They wait, like sealed letters, until someone is ready to listen. Behind the café, unseen, a door closed softly. Or perhaps it did not close at all.