Boys and Girl

one night. -enjoy-

 

The feeling is wearing off. The happy high that tingles in my veins is disappearing. And now I can see. I see the events like a Sunday newspaper word scramble. Local theatre production plays go on in my head. And chronological is a four letter word.

            The phone calls. One after the other. My grilled cheese sandwich is a light-year away, but still being digested. The stress of going is a distant wave. And your forgotten sushi is still fresh. The giggles and tickles and facial expressions still bright in my dulling memory. By the late morning’s sun they will be a mere sepia tone snapshot. But for now, there they are, in living vivid color.

            You came with a smile, a cough, and a friend. Awkward moments passed, and then I remembered it was you. You, the one I had wanted to see. And all melted. Seats shared and coffee taken, and we were you and me.

            But then he came, with bells and more friends. An intimate table turned into a group of intersecting conversations. I lost my ability to not care. Insecurity crept into me like an air bubble during your transfusion.

            Words spoken without words got intercepted and twisted. Anger born as the b*****d child of jealousy and misplaced unknown desire. With his usual air of arrogance and yearning he left. Off to plant the cancer seeds that prolonged his bells.

            My self-conscious naivety like blinders on a horse. The beliefs held as a child like fog on the back nine. I didn’t see, or believe to see, what were the addends of the subtle animosity that seeped through the air like a toxic laugh.

            In returning his happy Christmas bells turned to the dull gongs of a church calling the mourners to prayer. Sitting diagonally from me he starred as you tried to be suave and I smiled my crooked smile. In the second one’s eyes are closed in laughing ecstasy, the world as I knew it shifted. No longer did my presumptions hold.

            The clock struck eleven and the black clad bar boys ordered us out. Standing outside in the freak February in the south cold I shivered in my weak sweater. Once again he disappeared to plant seeds but this time you followed. Not wishing to be your scared little puppy I stayed put. My friend laughing and drinking with others. Me? Shivering in my newly felt jealous abandonment.

            You returned. But we weren’t you and I. we were me and you. I asked why. You said that bros came before hoes. I stepped back and looked at him; the hoe looking at the bro. I felt a new shade of jealousy. I was a scared little puppy, but with no owner to rub my belly. The wind blew through me and I tighten my grip on my breathing sides. My friend shivered and you hugged her. I shivered and you turned your head. Finally, the blindly proclaimed Christian in you awakened. You reached into your car and pulled out his jacket and gave it to me. I wrapped it greedily around myself and felt good.

            Once again, I asked which words had passed through the wall of seeds. You said you couldn’t tell me. Now. You’d tell me later. But that I should go talk to him. And I did. Shoving my hands deep in the pockets of his warm jacket I walked. I tried to hug him, he said no. We talked. Words left my mouth and entered his ears; vise versa. Though, now those all inspiring syllables escape me. I tried to hug him again and he let me. He shivered and I gave him back his jacket. He caught my essence.

            This time it was him and I returning to the group. The wind tossed our glances and voices to the world, possibly that is what created to safe romanticized world the enveloped us. But there it was.

            Everyone started leaving. Friends left. Then you and your friend were going to. And he tagged along. You weren’t happy, but you let him. You hugged my friend, but not me. He hugged me and her.

            Watching as you and him drove off, he turned for one last look. I smiled my cold crooked smile and looked away.

            It was late but there I was still. Remembering and reliving the motions and words that still played across my mind’s eye. My phone vibrated in my oversized bag. I grabbed it. It was him. Not a call. I didn’t get the tingle of his breath in the phone. Words typed across my screen.

            I was no longer me and you and him. I was him and I.