Issac

You thought about rain and swaying trees; the way the world looks right after a storm: gray and slightly shaken, but still whole. You had no way of knowing which thought came first, but you were certain which was the loudest. Years had gone by since you last saw him and he looked well, better than well—thriving. 

On your last encounter (mere months after the separation) both of you stayed out late and had drinks on some tiny patio. Together you walked home in the dark, your slow silent steps echoing through the night. He invited you in, but you turned him down. You knew what this was and wasn’t. You didn’t need to pretend any longer. 

What was it you saw in him that night? You tried recalling the sensation but its outlines were hazy. He was more muscular but so were you. Not any taller, not any better dressed. His smile was the same, his eyes still the same shade of bright hazel. So it had to be something else. Something subtle lurking underneath his surface. Perhaps it was his candor or his confidence. The way he held the door open for you or how he flirted with the bartender while ordering his drink. In the before-time, when you knew him and the world was still holding together, he would shrink his presence. With tight clothes and tense body language, he would curl up defensively; turn invisible by sheer force of will. In those days he unfurled for so few people. But, when he did, it was a rare sort of treasure. Like the first spring bloom of some flowering plant. 

Now (and you grew more certain of this as you looked), he was in perpetual bloom. You always wondered if he knew the pull he had on other people.  The charm of his smile. The novelty of the way he talked out of the side of his mouth made it look as if he was always smirking (which he often was). Here you questioned your last response. It would have been easy to accept his invitation. The two of you would sit close to each other, sipping some hastily mixed drink in nervousness. You would talk and get comfortable and then he would make his move. It could be an easy sort of return. A night of drunken sex and a morning of awkward tension. How easy it could be to fall back into old routines; to take up a previous mantle and continue where you left off. As if no time had passed, like things were always this way.

Looking at him now you drew something different. Deep in the clouds of your memory, a new light was peeking through. The outlines of that past encounter are now clearer to you. He had never invited you in at all. “Do you want me to wait out here with you for your ride?” He asked you and, embarrassed you shook your head no. “Well then,” he said. “It was great catching up. Good night.” 

It couldn’t be right. You remembered it differently. You felt your body getting hotter; your cheeks turning a bright shade of rash red. The two of you left together, right? Or had you followed him home? Yes, you remember. You were drawn to him, lingering behind him and talking. You were drunk, it was an honest excuse. Intoxicated and giddy you had trailed behind him like a needy dog. You loved the sensation of it: being collared by him leashed, and pulled back to his apartment. It was a contract. Wasn’t it? A game the two of you were playing? He must have felt it too. You were sure he did. But had he said anything? What was his mood? His condition? It was all so long ago, you didn’t have the memory. You could remember bits and pieces of it, but these mangled things didn’t fit together. This momentary reversal in power excited you. 

Since then you believed the two of you had been in silent conspiracy. Orbiting the other but never coming close. But here he was, sturdy and commanding. His posture changed, his body dotted with all sorts of new and exotic flowering blooms. He brought you in with a smirking smile. He didn’t bring you in at all. How clueless had you been to the whole affair? The two of you were nothing now. But how long had that been true?

You wanted him to invite you in. Yes, that was the truth. You wanted it but it never happened. You wanted the touch, the tension, the return. You wanted something dramatic and rewarding. Anything really. Anything that could undo what you had done. But nothing was coming. You missed your moment. And so, rejected, you walked back home in the dark, the wind whistling through your hollow body.