Embers

Thornton's Newport.

I hear a chair scrape along the floor and turn my head, as you always have to, in the direction of the disturbance. A tallish, slim and quite shapely female, with straight blonde hair falling to just below her shoulders, and with her back to me, is preparing to leave. My gaze lingers a little longer than it should because, from behind, she reminds me of my ex-partner, Sharon, but younger and then it all floods back: The laughs. The passion. The lust. The love. The frustration. The game playing. The betrayal. The hurt. The anger. The fights. The separation. The pain, oh the pain. The guilt. The regrets.

The woman, who I think resembles Sharon turns round - and is Sharon.

A tingle runs through my body, as it always does when I see her, even after all these years.

I lean across to Juki and whisper, “It's Sharon.”

Sharon walks towards us, she has no alternative if she wishes to leave, and then sees us, sees me.

“Hello, Sharon.”

“Hello,” she responds sweetly - perhaps deliberately so.

I feel a lump in my throat - why?

She passes close by and her friend following her, dark haired and plain, shoots me a hostile glance.

I watch her as she makes for the door.

I know that she knows I am watching her. I also know that Juki is watching me watching Sharon.

She exits into the High Street but before she disappears behind the edge of the glass front she casts a quick sneaky glance in our direction - she's looking at me to see if I'm looking at her. I am.

I wonder where she is going, what she has planned for the evening, and I wonder what I and she would have planned for the evening if we had still been together…

I turn back to face Juki, Juki who I really love, love more than Sharon, Juki who understands me like Sharon never did. Or maybe, just maybe, Sharon did really understand me…

I smile, reassuringly, at Juki who knows that when you truly love someone, truly love them, that that flame though it may wane can never be completely extinguished.

I guess the embers still glow and I guess too that that is something I will have to live with till the day I die.

“Let's get our shopping now Juki, get the next bus back home, have a quiet night in. You know that I really love you Juki, don't you?”

“Yes.”

I lean across the table and kiss her because I really do love her. More than anyone…