i'm going back to 505
if it's a seven hour flight
or a forty-five minute drive
in my imagination
you're waiting,
lying on your side
with your hands between your thighs
—arctic monkeys

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                        I KNOCK TWICE, wait two seconds, then knock three times, so she'll know who's behind the door.

We settled on this knocking technique when one too many fugitives slipped in because of her carelessness, and we decided that, at night, she'll only open if she hears these specific knocks.

Caterina lives in the slummiest room of her uncle's shabby Bed and Breakfast.

She settled here when she got kicked out of her parents' home a few years back. She continuously moved in and out when things altered between "looking good" : when she found a cheap apartment downtown, and "looking bad", when she lost one too many jobs because of her unprofessional and infinitely inappropriate attitude, her bosses' words when I went by to have a talk with them.

I hear soft, muffled rustling behind the door.

She always did take a while to answer the door. To calm myself, I try to imagine what she might have been doing before I knocked.

Unlike most people, her favorite reading spot is her small corridor, cross-legged with all the bedroom doors closed and locked. She thinks corridors are in-between, passage zones that aren't quite physical zones, says it makes the transition between fact and fiction easier.

I shuffle my feet, breathing in the crisp night air. Or, she might've been sculpting something. She's only ever at peace when her hands are keeping clay warm. She likes to sculpt all the overlooked, neglected things we pass by everyday but don't bother giving a second glance or thought, likes to give value to everything that lacks it.

Why are you here, Nathaniel? A voice rings in my ear. Run while you still can. Drive away before you fall back in. Go now, or you'll get hurt. Go back to—

There. I am blinded. The shitty door is abruptly pulled open, and all my running thoughts smash against a blank wall. White noise is all I've ever heard, musk is all I've ever smelt.

There she is. Caterina stands in the doorway, her slender fingers still wrapped around the doorknob like a web, nails clean and cut haphazardly, the most stunning star in the night.

And then it hits me, like a punch, a metal bar to the skull, a lethal blow that leaves you breathless for an hour, how much I have missed this woman.

She's in nothing but black lingerie, a transparent negligee, and ice cream print socks. Her dark, coffee brown hair flows down her shoulders and trails her spine like an endless river. Curved, bright pink lips, a small angular nose turned a bit upwards, sky-high cheekbones apparent from miles away, like two gleaming knives in the sun.

Bronze skin, courtesy of her Italian heritage, and littered with goosebumps and freckles. She is a work of art, a renaissance statue carved from marble, to absolute perfection.

Then, her eyes. The reason it was physically impossible to tear my gaze off her when I laid eyes on this mesmerizing creature.

I could never quite put my finger on which color they were. When I first met her, they were a dazzling, fierce turquoise as she yelled at me for treating her coworker, a waitress, like scum, and 'being the incarnation of every reason why capitalism is going to end us all', as she put it. When she's excited, they twinkle like stars in the brightest shade of green. When she's afraid, or furious, they turn blue, like glass in the winter.

When I look at her, when she's in my thoughts, when I let her invade my senses, only then do I see god in all his glory, only then am I a true believer in a higher power.

"Caterina," I let out, like a muttered prayer, forgetting about the cold, the doctors, the therapists, my car, my job. My jaw tightens. "Get inside,"

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don't forget to vote and comment so the author knows she's not writing bullshit!