"Can I ask you something?" Maria, her armour shed, lay with her feet in Charles' lap on the white sofa, now bearing an immaculate red wine stain on the left arm.
In response, Charles hummed, one hand resting heavily upon her ankle. In his other, he held a pint glass. Periodically, a drop of water smashed upon the hardwood, disturbing their silence. A silence, that is, which Maria invented in her vigour to speak. A silence which she insisted was not only mutual but familiar. A welcome silence.
"Do you ever wonder if we fucked up?" And Charles laughed, moving to answer, but Maria continued, ignorant in her fervor, "With Remus. Because, no matter how beautiful and flawless and- And how much of a blessing they are... I still wonder if my life would be- Not better but... Closer. To what I thought it would be. To what I dreamed about when I was a kid. I keep asking, you know- Asking what reality would be like if we- Is 'Terminated' the right word? Because it's sounding a little Arnold Schwarzenegger now that I've said it out loud... Charlie?"
His expression was thrown into shadow by the drawn curtains. Maria swallowed as his hand closed like a shackle around her ankle.
"What the fuck, Maria?"
