The Silhouette 3

I started working on this series a bit ago. I posted the first here, and then did some really rough stuff later, one of which I am now going to post.

The Silhouette 3
People really do mean what they say about sunsets, she thinks, as the fire sinks and bleeds into the horizon. She lowers her gaze, to his form on the shoreline, standing perfectly still, his shoulders held in a way that makes her certain that he is grinning on the brink of laughter. Like a hunter, she steps, once, lightly, and appropriately, he darts. She will not run to him, though, and he knows that. Instead she waits, knowing he may not come back, that that would be just like him.
She waits in a world that suddenly seems more dark than light, and he is gone a minute too long.

And now she begins to run, but her body is so heavy and unkempt. She runs with the momentum of panic for a long time, until it runs out, and even then, she pulls through beach forest, step by step, her chest heaving. She lands on the other side, and of course, he is not there. She falls on fours and vomits up strawberries and bile and hard candies.
And maybe somewhere, she is crying again, but she can't tell anymore, because the sun has gone down. The sun of a day that had been good, and lazy and so precious. So precious.
She doesn't hear him return, but she sees, blearily, his feet. She reaches out and touches his ankles with dull fingers and he recoils, stepping, away from her, without the expected grace. She bites her lip.

He turns away and runs again and she isn't even sure that he was there, ever. She breathes, and without meaning to, an unwelcome hope creeps up.

Because maybe he will be around to sell her things again, at Christmas. Maybe he will come back with the snow.