She was a little girl for twenty seven years, incantations and wishes echoed within the walls of her imagination, forging a self that she never expected to become.
Her face was no longer hopefully pressed up against the glass. She was now the aggressor. She tilted her head back to gaze up at the ceiling of the high stairwell. Yellow light cast down upon her face as she heard the foosteps of her husband. She heard the familiar, heavy steps, as he made his way down towards her from so high above. Please stay there. Please stay
      She leaned back against the fire exit door of the sixth floor, waiting. She closed her heavy eyelids, listening to him come to her. She once felt an unease at his arrival. There was a time when it was too much to bear that she would see him in several hours, to be with him and to be held by him. The unease brought on by excitement at the discovery of a new love, was what made her happy, when she genuinely felt so.
      When the feeling withered, she felt perhaps it was a maturation into something meaningful. She had become the love of his life. She had become something too meaningful. She had a power over him, she was an enslaver. She was his deity, but his worship reduced her to existing for the sole purpose of his joy.
When he reached the landing at which she stood, she turned to him and slipped soft, delicate hands into her sweater pockets.
      "Well?" He asked, quietly, as to not disturb the silent stairwell. "Where are we going?"
      She stared into his neutral, expressionless eyes and lifted a gun from her pocket. It was so much heavier once it had been appointed a purpose. That weight was now in her hand, in his sight, and in their life. She lifted it to her head and her now dark eyes, once empty, were now filled with something that scared him more than the gun itself.
      "Let me go!" She growled to him, the gun held close to her head in her unwavering grip. "Let me go!" The echoes reverberated painfully from the concrete, buzzing in their ears. There was no hysteria in her voice. Just a plain, threatening plea to be freed forever. The incantation set her free at last, and there was laughter.
      He said nothing, and she said nothing. The gun remained against her forehead, as they stood there for several hours. The connection they shared mediated a silent battle of unnecessary speech. She began to feel her body grow tired, weak, as his gaze remained desperate. She sighed finally, and both resigned. There was no victory declared that night, only the echoing concrete.