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A story of confusion in three parts.

Part 1: THE PAST TENSE

After two years of knowing and five months after of not speaking, fate found me in her car after a night of catching up on all we’d lost. I had moved smoothly onward, leaving the past behind me, only to find it dredged up again. She stares at me across the divide of the gear shift and says the words that made me drop everything and will always make me drop everything.

“Whoever it was you fall in love with for the first time, not just love but be in love with, is the one who will always make you angry, the one you can’t be logical about. It may be that you are settled in another place, it may be that you are happy, but the one who took your heart wields final power.” [jeanette winterson, the passion]

“I want to be with you,” she says to me quietly. I think of the girls I’ve been seeing five hours north of here. I think of the north. I think of the five hours. I bite my lip. I ask her what she means by this. She says she means it all. I say, “This is dangerous ground,” or maybe I’m still just thinking that because I never care about danger with her. There is no one more dangerous, and so when with her I am safest. I say aloud, “Let’s do a trial run. I’ll be home in three weeks, from there we can try three months if that feels right.” A few more minutes or hours, I’ll never know, and then a haphazard last kiss as I leave to go home. Miscalculated, giddy, teeth on teeth.

The next morning finds me five hours north. The next week finds us in all our proper modest honesty; three calls a day and the semblence of us as reality. The following week, lacking in frequency, her job eating her time as if time were a delicacy. Since it is her time, of course it is a delicacy, and perhaps I am merely jealous of time who gets to eat it. Not too much worry. Week three arrives and not a word. No returned messages, electronic or voice or otherwise. Silence. A heart torn apart from guesswork.

Part 2: HEADGAMES [Subtitle: It's all in my head... or is it?]

I speculate everything and anything. I am not a suspicious person by nature but the history of her and I leaves me questioning and worried. There are thirty scenarios, each equally unlikely, and I know as I rest in the comfort of our affections that everything could easily be explained if only she would take the time to explain. Yet…

Insert break in typing and storytelling. Mmmm, pumpkin bread. I love pumpkin. Okay, ready to continue.

Yet I am ignored from every angle and how am I to know if it is circumstantial or personal? Luckily this is week three and I’m going five hours southbound on a chilly Friday. Saturday finds me at her storefront, an entire day dedicated to the covert operation and the gathering of enough balls to walk in. I have larger balls than all men and most women, but I still dislike calling her work, let alone going to it. Somehow, I manage. This is the scenario I am prepared for, as I like to prepare for the worst:

Me (walking in): Hey.

She (looking up, pause): You need to leave.

Me (not visibly shaken): Spare me five minutes, the store won’t burn down without you. You don’t even have to speak. Allow me five minutes and the gifts that belong to you; I can’t keep them.

Luckily it was not quite that way and no force had to be exerted. She acted as her usual self and explained away the silence by telling me all the crazy recent developments in her life. I understand them to a degree; that is, I am only getting half the story and I know I’m only getting half the story. No matter how busy, she could call to tell me so. No, rather, she chooses not to speak to me in order to not add me to the list of troubles. She does not need to say this. I know her well enough to interpret her.

Cigarette break, she and I move outside to speak in warmer tones in a colder environment. I give her part of her gift, keeping the rest as she insinuates we will see each other again. She asks about my grades; A’s always make her proud. A couple of hugs, a kiss on the cheek. We return to her store and I leave then, with her promise to call because we need to talk.

Part 3: SHE LOVES ME, SHE LOVES ME NOT

More or less quiet on her end, her store closes later and later as she tries to find sanity among the havoc in her life. I recieve no call; I call to ask how I should organize my week so that we can talk. She says she will let me know. I talk to her a few nights later, she says she does not want to hurt me anymore. I say I am not hurting, and what makes her think that she would continue to do so?

She loves another; but she is not sure. She says this is a recent discovery, she says she didn’t know. But because she loves another, I cannot entertain the thought of her.

“I love you and my love for you makes any other life a lie.” [jeanette winterson, written on the body]

Any life with me would make us into a lie. I do not live lies.

Afterthoughts: FOOTNOTES

When I say I am the owner of an Amazon heart, do not doubt me.

by toni riot