The Gallery

Weak sunlight caught his attention, accustomed
as he was to his constant shadows. He stopped his
dark reflections to study it. Head tilted to the side, his face a portrait of ambiguity. The silver in his sable hair belied the youthful face that was now, as so often, somber in his musings.
The sunlight strengthened, weaving dancing figures on the wall. It reminded him of her. His mouth tightened as his traitorous mind brought up the memories he sought to bury.
Hair the color of sun and fire together, she was the sun to his night. Laughter like fall leaves crackling under your feet. It was her laughter that still haunted him. Like an echo you chase, it was always one step ahead. Always and forever around the next bend; an elusive, taunting, beckoning wraith. It was the wraith he had chased for years. Why? Maybe because with her, he had felt. He felt emotions, where before he had cut them off. It was like she had broken the glass he barricaded himself behind; where he could see things from, but couldn't taste them, smell them, feel them. She changed all of that. She made him feel everything, and inevitibly, in the end, she made him feel pain. It was like bathing in fire and freezing in ice. So once again he retreated back behind his glass walls, and he lived with his shadows and ghosts. Now as he watched the sunlight, the memories threatened to break the glass.
To any stranger observing him, he appeared to be contemplating the painting; his hands clasped behind his back, head bowed, and one foot in front of the other. The painting was a Titian.
She watched him from within the shadows that silently mocked her, and knew his thoughts as he pondered the sunlight. She hadn't expected to see him here, but knew it shouldn't surprise her. They had been so alike in some ways, and this gallery had been their favorite place once upon a long past time. She had believed herself in love then, but young, naive and innocent, she thought she could change him to be what she wanted. "How ironic", she thought bitterly, "that what I wanted to change then, was what I appreciate now." He had been serious and cautious, where she was impulsive, and at times, reckless. Intoxicated with life and love, she had laughed in the face of Fate, and now Fate was laughing at her. He had had a respect for Fate, for he had seen too much of life. But in her shortsightedness, she had mistaken it for rigidity. She teased him for being too reticent, but now she saw it for what it really was: maturity. In the end, she ran as she always did. She couldn't face her illusions being torn down.
She was older now, wiser, she hoped. Now she saw him for who he was, instead of who she wanted him to be. She knew she still loved him.
She choked back the tears that fought to cascade, for she knew that she had hurt him beyond anything. She turned to run once again, but caught her heel in the stone.
He turned at the sound behind him, and saw her materialize as though conjured out of his memories. "Bella", he breathed, reaching out with disbelief and longing etched onto his face. "I'm sorry" the vision replied from behind her curtain of hair..hair that was the color of sun and fire mixed together. "I think you've mistaken me for someone else." Immediately his face closed and became granite again. "Forgive me. You reminded me of someone I thought I knew once." He studied her, then turned away and walked down the hall, not missing the trembling of her mouth, nor the shimmer of tears in her shuttered eyes. At the doorway he paused. Turned around once more, met her eyes, and she knew then that he wasn't fooled - he knew that it was her. She hesitated for only once second, then began to run towards him. He opened his arms slowly as she neared.
It was where she had left,nearly seven years before.