A love that destroys them - part 2

By the third week, they had stopped knocking. The wall between 4A and 4B became a formality. Elena paid rent on her apartment, but her toothbrush lived in his bathroom, her clothes in a drawer he had emptied. She told herself it was temporary. She told herself she was being careful.They did not go out. Gabriel played less. The nocturne, which had drawn her through the wall, became something he performed only when she asked, and she stopped asking because she could see how it pained him. The music that had been his ritual now felt like a door to a room he no longer wanted to enter. She told herself this was love—absorbing someone else's pain until it became your own.Her sister called on a Tuesday. Elena let it ring four times before answering. Her sister asked about new city, new job, new life. Elena said fine, fine, everything was fine. She did not mention Gabriel. She did not mention that she had not left the building in six days. She did not mention that fine had become a language she spoke only to people who did not matter.After she hung up, Gabriel asked, Who was that?No one, she said, and the ease of the lie felt like truth.He looked at her. I do not want to be no one.You are not. She took his hand. His fingers were cold, calloused from years of keys. She pressed them to her cheek. You are everything.The word hung between them. Everything. Too large, too hungry. She saw him register its weight, saw him decide not to set it down.That night, they did not sleep. They lay in his narrow bed, tangled like a single organism refusing to separate. He talked about the compositions he had abandoned, the ones he would start now that she was here. She talked about the life she had left, the one she no longer wanted back. They spoke in whispers, as if loudness would crack the world they were building, this fragile glass house where love was a country with no other citizens.At four in the morning, the radiator in her apartment clanked. They both heard it. Gabriel said, You should go back. Sleep in your own bed.I do not want to, she said.I know. He pulled her closer. That is why I am afraid.

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