The crow and the satellite,

The soft light of the early morning cascaded over her slender frame. He stared at her, with his arm outstretched, loosely tracing her elegant silhouette as she lay in slumber. Claire was beautiful and seemed almost infallible, but Craig could not say that he loved her. He was aware of his cynicism regarding love and held the belief that it has nothing to with destiny or fate, but by now, he believed that he should love her, through the strengthening of their relationship, through shared experience. But he didn’t, he just couldn’t. At times, he felt genuinely guilty that he couldn’t really feel any connection with her, at least, not in the same way as she felt connected to him. He felt fraudulent, although, to be fair, he’d never directly told her that he loved her, no, he hadn’t lied to her.

The shrill noise of the telephone cut through the silence of the morning, startling Craig from his musings. Claire remained perfectly still, totally undisturbed. It was Noelle.
“I called you up, just to surprise you. I want to hear your voice, to hear what you’re going to say. Don’t disappoint me, Craig.” She sounded as animated, electric and unfocused as ever, A twinge of longing and fear crippled him into to silence. He remained, for a uncomfortable few seconding, with only the noise of heavy, lingering breath, then, as usual, the breathing cut to the defeating note of the dialling tone. She’d called three times that week, demanding to just hear his voice, he’d disappointed each time. Noelle was the only person from Craig’s ‘old life’ that’d persisted in trying to connect with him.

Throughout childhood and most of high school, he’d suffered from selective mutism. At his first high school, Noelle had made a consistent attempt to ease words from him, at no avail. Whilst most others had given up, she endured. In 9th grade, however, he changed schools, in his parent’s final attempt to induce verbosity, they encouraged his to entirely reinvent himself. Although it was no miracle and he was still unable to conjure up words in front of some, he could speak, and for him, it was a huge relief. Word must have spread rapidly, for it was not long before Noelle first called him,