Today, I will cross through your life again.
You feel me all morning. You tossed and turned in your sleep last night, juggling back nightmares where I lied to your lips and you liked it. When you wake up next to the pretty girl who is sharing your bed, you—for a minute—forget her name. She sleeps on the side you used to sleep on. You can’t let her lay where my body used to be.
She makes you coffee, which doesn’t taste like mine, and you mumble a quiet thanks. In the shower, trying to scrub me from your skin like a callous, she asks if she can join you, her muddle tone like whispers through the steam. For the first time, you say no. You brush your teeth for minutes, struggling to remove the taste of me from your mouth. It’s been years, and you can still taste me perfectly.
You dress and undress and redress, finally putting on my favorite shirt. It’s blue, and buttons up, and hugs you perfectly. The color makes your eyes so bright. You remember me telling you that once. You haven’t worn it since that summer, too vivid are the memories of me unbuttoning it as you stood above me on my bed, the sunlight behind me, falling onto your tan, warm skin. You’re much paler now. You look very French. She asks you if that is a new shirt, she says she likes it very much. You tell her that it is, thank you.
You skip breakfast. She wants to come with you, to have breakfast together at the coffee shop on the square. Her big, baby eyes like saucers, shining underneath her confusion—you’re cold today—you’ve never been like this to her. Her cheeks like a child, like yours were when you were mine, make you say yes. She smiles and you remember how lovely it is to be loved by someone lovely. She’s lovely. I’m not lovely. I never was.
On the subway, she tells you about her students. Her voice falls into the crowd of voices, the sound of the metro cracking through her tone. She’s a teacher, or something, because she cares about everyone. When she asks you a question, you’ve stopped listening completely and she falls into quiet. You don’t like the subway as much as you liked the passenger seat of my car, the windows down, the music loud, the wind hitting our skin like a riot and my voice even louder than the radio, singing out warnings which you never could understand.
It is springtime and your sleeves are rolled up. She comments on the tulips. They’re her favorite flower.
She holds your hand, even though you like her holding your arm. She’s a hand holder, that one. You don’t feel the need to hide her hands in your pockets like you used to do with mine. People don’t call to her the same way they did to me. Even when they do, you don’t get mad.
You walk toward the coffee shop on the square, half way between your work and hers. You met her there. She was new in town and she had stopped in to go to the restroom. She spilled her coffee on your shoe and when she dropped to her knees to dab it off, you thought that she had a beautiful sense of propriety. She offered to buy you a coffee because she was so sorry. You didn’t accept, but you thought about it. Instead, you told her to take a seat and you offered her company in exchange for the converse I had bought you so many years before. You believed in signs. You still do.
She isn’t speaking anymore, because your lack of responses have made her uncomfortable. She whistles under her breath because silence bothers her. I always liked silence. You are indifferent to it.
She likes her coffee creamy and sweet, the way that I used to. I drink my coffee black now, but you don’t know that. You bite your chocolate croissant, which they warm for you, and she laughs at the chocolate which is smeared on your upper lip. She kisses it off, and for the first time today, you really see her. You see her again, the way that you usually do, her effortless awe like sunrise. I was always much more of a sunset. She is home now. I am a single photo from a vacation years before, tucked into your dresser drawer, which you look at when you’re feeling lost.
You sit together at the same table where you met. She finishes her coffee, you finish your croissant.
For no apparent reason, your heart starts to race. Your hands start to warm. When you stand and she touches your skin. It is too hot and she worries. She doesn’t recognize the look on your face. She’s never seen it before. I have. You feel the same knots and pulsing I could always activate in your chest. Your pretty little girl can’t stop staring at your eyes, so hot, so intense. You are scanning the crowd because you know that I am there. You push open the front door and step outside into the sunlight.
You feel me.
You smell me.
There I am.
I am sitting at the very table where you always imagined I would be sitting. You knew it would be here where you would see me. My hair looks the same from the back, just a bit longer. My eyes look the same when I turn and see you over my shoulder. I felt you too. You recognize my tattoos, even the ones you’ve never seen before, because they look like my thoughts, which you knew so well for so long. I am the nightmare, but you still cannot swallow when I smile. I am sitting at a table, my legs bare, and my dress tight, my cigarette quivering as I flick the ash, staring. You cannot rip your eyes from my existence. You don’t know what to say. I bring the cigarette to my lips—your lips, once—and you notice the person across from me. Some nobody to you, nobody who matters, just exactly what you would’ve expected. Some nobody who is watching my body the same way that you used to. You are enraged. I can see it.
I look at her now, that pretty little slice of kindness, with ballet flats and a summer dress. She’s holding your hand so tightly. I wonder if you like hand holding now, or if you just like her. Her skin looks like smiles and I bet that her eyes dance when she listens to you laugh—you’re a laugher. I made you laugh. She doesn’t make you laugh, but you can make her blush and smile, so innocent and milky. Her kisses taste like candy in the same way mine tasted like wine. I can see it all just looking at her, and I am so happy for you.
You can’t help but smile back, a small laugh falling from your lips, because you’ve thought about this moment for years, and it is here, and you don’t care. I shake my head, laughing too, because knowing someone like I knew you—like you knew me—is laughable. Your hair is the same, maybe shorter than before. You look older, but still so young. I look older still, I never looked young. My eyelids are heavier and my shoulders are sharper. I’ve lost weight—you liked my curves. You wouldn’t like my body so much now, I’m not as soft. She’s so soft—even her elbows and knees can’t leave a mark on you. Nothing about her is hard. I’m a hard sell. She’s sold on you.
Our silent conversation. You nod—yes, you are happy, thanks for asking. I shrug. You look across the table and I shake my head. I look down your arm to the little pink hand and you nod. We both lose our smiles for a minute. You want to walk to me. I want to stand. Neither of us move.
She asks you who I am. Your silence tells her everything. She knows my stories, my name, the scars I left you with. She healed you, day by day, until your heart was sewn enough to love her back. She loved you so immensely that you had no choice but to reciprocate. She fixed you into loving her back and you’ll never stop. She deserves you in a way that I never did.
Her face is harder now when she looks at me, and I smile at her to apologize, to tell her that I never meant to do those things to you, to tell her that it seems I had to break you so that she could fix you. She doesn’t understand my silent looks, but you do. You want to turn to her and shield her eyes. You wish you could tell her to go, just for a minute, so you can feel me to yourself, just for a minute, or so you can tell me all things you have left to say.
You realize then—with her silence and my laughter and your smile—that you have nothing left to say to me. We are but impressions on each other. I am the bruise that never fades on the inside of your wrist. You are the freckle on my cheek that you always loved so much. I am the memory of kisses on your dimples when you woke, always too early, always too bright. You are the feeling of an arm under my neck, holding me close, despite the heat. We are memories, so intangible, that if she wasn’t there, you might have wondered if I was real. I am, but not to you. Even sitting there before you, smoking and smiling, I am translucent. You, on the other hand, are the realest thing I have ever known. I couldn’t dream you up if I tried. You dream me up every night, still, even now.
She cannot bring herself to break the line between us, and she wonders if you will ever look at her the way that you look at me. What she does not understand, though, is that a look like that can’t sustain. When your eyes hold her in their subtle embrace, you have promised her forever. She wants your children and your kittens. You are kind to her. You respect her. You kiss her softly on the pillow, even on the nights when you think of me to finish. You wanted me for a passionate daydream and you need her for life.
Her hand squeezes yours three times. You squeeze back twice. I can see it from my table and I know that I am gone. Finally, you leave first. You blink to break our bond and turn to watch her. She follows your lead, her gaze lingering on me even as you walk away. You do not look back. Neither do I.
You do not speak of me after, except for when she tells you that I am beautiful. You say nothing.
That night, you love her like a honeymoon, and she gasps into the pillow, much quieter than I ever was. You think of her the entire time, your sunshine in the middle of the night. She tells you that she loves you when she finishes. You tell her that you love her too as she falls asleep on your shoulder, for the first time, on my side of the bed.
