From: Katharine James Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 10:07:07 -0400 Subject: Sapphire and Champagne revision Source: revision Title: SAPPHIRE AND CHAMPAGNE Author: Katharine James classification: Vignette/Angst ********************* I watch her. I watch her often. It is a habit, like breathing. She doesn't notice. I think she doesn't notice. I watch her incessantly, constantly. I have watched her for years, always amazed at how quickly I am undone by her brilliance. I try not to show it, how deeply she moves me. It would put me at a disadvantage which I can ill afford, confronted as I am by those insightful, probing eyes. She doesn't notice. Thank god she doesn't notice. I know she doesn't watch me the same way. I have given her openings. Clumsy, fumbling ones, it's true, not the poetic flow of lovely words she deserves. I have tried to tell her, tried to show her. I have saved her life. More than once. I do not make a habit of saving lives, no matter what I tell myself. The concrete opportunities are few and far between. I don't care enough about most people to run around saving lives. I did it for her. She is the only one. She doesn't notice. I feel her compassion, when she lets down the walls she has so painstakingly built. I think I feel her feelings for me. But her emotions are guarded, and the one uppermost, even beyond her anger, is pity. She pities me. And despite everything I have done on her behalf pity is all I discern, no matter how hard I search for the truth. I glance into her sapphire eyes and try to read the whirlwind of emotion running deep within them. Years. Years of watching her, and I do not know what else she feels for me. That is not completely true. I have felt from her a marked...disdain. My attempts to touch her, to make her comfortable, to create intimacy between us have caused her to withdraw from me. I don't delude myself into thinking that I deserve her, nor do I deny to myself that I have shamelessly used her over the years and probably will again, whether she knows it or not. It still hurts, on some visceral level, to be disdained by one whose good opinion I so desire. She's always as classy and as cool as champagne. It is an impenetrable facade, one I dare not shatter. I watch her, daring to sneak peeks at her marvelous skin, so often kept from my sight. I take my opportunities when I can, for they are rare indeed. I think of her, alone at night, in that four poster bed whispering my name as moonlight spills over her sheets. I know it doesn't happen. It is an image created in my head, pieced together from my occasional visits to that room and the memory of her voice. It is all I have to hold onto as I suddenly know, with a sinking in my stomach, that she will never stay with me. And I want what is best for her. I want it with a quiet desperation that will allow me to let her go to a man that can be for her all the things I cannot, even though the macabre dance we have engaged in all these years has kept her from any kind of real intimacy. If I quietly stand aside she can find happiness. I watch her. I watch her walk away from me. She gets into her car and begins the long drive back to life. I stand on the dock, feeling the weight of guilt on my chest and a disk in my pocket. As she pulls away I walk back to the house and light a cigarette. She does not notice. ********************* Much thanks to the Beta Readers Circle for putting me in touch with Rebe, and even more thanks to Rebe for a wonderful, gentle, yet passionate beta experience for this fanfic virgin! Please send feedback to katharinejames@crosswinds.net