Hold Me While You Wait

9|disappear with night

disappear with night

"Tell me another one," Elis laughed. The girls had been sitting on the balcony, just outside Elis's room. The sun had began to go down, the abolished view of their garden contradictory to the beautiful shades of orange, yellow and red that soared the sky.

Elis wondered about beauty in all its aspects, it felt weird realizing how the sun simply going down attracted the very attention of Man. In a way, she figured that the earth really did appear beautiful in it's nature, but she had yet to consider if for an instance, it would be as beautiful as the girl seated in front of her.

She didn't think so, though.

Gray was like the unseen universe herself. She was more beautiful than everything Elis has ever set eyes on, and to think of where that beauty went, how deeply it reached in her soul. It was what Elis wished to know, to see, to understand.

Her emotions seemed to get the best of her lately, and it was something she was afraid of  experiencing: not knowing what to do and not knowing how to act.

"But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, than that which withering on the virgin thorn grows, lives and dies in single blessedness... That's another one I like. It's from A Midsummer Night's Dream," Gray articulated.

She had been reciting her favorite Shakespearean quotes to Elis, explaining to her when she didn't understand, or when she asked to know more.

"Is that about virgins?"

Gray chuckled. "Well...yes. He talks about how people who can restrain their passions and stay virgins forever are holy. But although a virgin priestess might be rewarded in heaven, a married woman is happier on Earth. A married woman is like a rose who is picked and made into a beautiful perfume, while a priestess just withers away on the stem."

"So she's better than the Virgin? The married woman?"

Gray shifted in her position. "People were brought into the universe to be together. Men with women, men with men, women with women. In this instance, love is love is love. But to stay alone, that's something too. And I guess that's why the Virgin priestess is rewarded in heaven, while a married woman remains happy on Earth."

Elis looked at the ginger girl and her smile growing. "You seem to know a lot."

"I know enough, Elis. Not a lot."

"Well you do know about Shakespeare. In my opinion, that's enough to be considered as a lot," Elis manipulated the smaller girl's words against her.

"I just happen to be intrigued by the way he describes and talks about love."

"So tell me," Elis leaned forward, hugging her arms around her legs. "What's your most favorite quote about love?"

"I like sonnet 18, one of the most popular sonnets in the world," Gray glanced at the girl in front of her as she spoke. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day."

"Oh yeah, it's the summer's day one." Elis scoffed, looking back at the sky. "I hate it. Why not winter's night? Or something else that's not so clichè it makes me wanna throw up."

"Write it then."

Elis set her gaze back to the girl who had a challenging look on her face.

"Write it. Shall I compare thee to a winter's night, just how you wish Shakespeare would've written it." She leaned forward, looking into the eyes of the silent girl in front of her.

"Why should I?" Elis then remarked.

"Because I'm dying to see, Elisabeth Collins," the ginger girl replied. "I'm dying to see what makes sense in your mind...what is it that you are trying so hard to fathom?"

Little did she know it was her.

It was her that Elis kept trying to fathom.