Thursday, July 23, 2009

Is There A Line That I Could Write

Reposting from the distant past because words fail me in the present. But that doesn't make any of it less true. Originally published August 12, 2007.

When You Left I Was Last To Know

It was 1995. (Most of my stories start out with that sentence, I've come to realize.) September 11 or 18, I'm not so sure anymore. Pretty sure it was a Monday at least, because Mondays are notorious for these things. That was the day I saw you holding his hand.

To be fair, it wasn't like it was side-by-side-walking-in-the-park; he had his behind his back and you were holding them behind him, as if he was taking you somewhere. Somewhere fun. Would things have been different if it had stopped there? Probably not. But.

Days later, perhaps it was that Thursday, or the next: there's a narrow set of stairs at the corner of the foyer that maintenance people use to get to the air conditioning boxes outside the second floor. I've never seen anyone actually go up there.

Anyway, it's a pretty secluded hiding spot, except maybe if you took the shortcut from the campus' main artery to the foyer, or turned that corner coming from the library. And that's exactly what I did when I found you (plural) there.

Maybe I was coming from class, or just walking around aimlessly because that's what I do when I'm angry or depressed. No, I'm lying: I was looking for you, and I guess it worked. I muttered something under my breath while I walked past and picked up the pace, something along the lines of "Fuck".

Now I didn't think there would be another 5-day stretch that would hurt like that did. I was wrong.