“Lennon?” I heard a voice call out to me, and for a moment, I didn’t want to turn around. I really didn’t want to turn around. But mama didn’t raise a coward, and so I turned around with a fake smile on my lips. There she was, blonde curls all messily thrown up and a coffee in her hand. Still as achingly beautiful as the last time that I saw her. Still as overwhelmingly ethereal. I could feel the carefully placed blocks of my life begin to crash down as the gaze of her apathetic eyes tore me apart. The way that she always looked at me like I was a human standing at the altar of her godliness. The way that it hurt. The way that I would rather flay myself alive than subject myself to again. The way that I would rather throw myself off a cliff than admit that I need it. The way that I would rather die than to never kneel at her feet and beg, pray, for just a brush of her perfectly clean fingers against my own dirty ones.
“Hey!” I say, feeling my progress; all those long hours of therapy wither away with every moment that I stand here in her presence.
“It’s been a while. You’ve cut your hair,” she said as she reached, and her fingers brushed the dark curls beside my face, and a memory surfaced from long ago.
“If only we could have kids. They’d have the most beautiful curly hair ever.”
Sometimes I ache for those children that will never be. I am snapped out of those thoughts by the feel of her fingertip against my cheek in the lightest of kisses. I jerk away, and she dropped her hand down as if burnt. As if she could feel even a fraction of the pain that I feel. Ha. How the tables have turned.
She cleared her throat. We stood in silence for a minute while I gathered my courage to leave. I tried to picture what would happen if I stayed. To will my feet to move. To will my tongue to lift.
“I finally watched that movie that you recommended.”
We would be forever at odds. Never quite on the same page. Like two puzzle pieces that have nowhere else to go but do not fit together.
“I thought it was really good.”
Two different milks in the fridge. Mayonnaise and Miracle Whip. Two different vegetables for every meal.
“I heard that there’s a sequel in theaters, have you seen it yet?”
Clothes in the hamper; clothes on the floor.
“I also haven’t gone to see it yet.”
Two different shampoos. The water jug in the fridge unfilled.
“I was waiting to see if someone would go see it with me.”
The trash not taken out. Both pancakes and waffles in the morning.
“But no one that I know has seen the first one so no one can.”
Two holidays; two families never fully accepting the other.
“Would you like to go with me?”
No.
No.
Alas, what was it that Homer said about Calypso? Ah yes, “he had no choice—
unwilling lover alongside lover all too willing.”
“Yes.” I, too, had to follow my Calypso.