Over you

Well, this is awkward. Went to re-find my old *fiction* stories but I had the most annoying habit of pretending that everything I wrote as fact was actually fiction which means the titles and labels are super confusing (thanks past Emily, it’s literally in your subheading and you still managed to fool yourself.). Every time I’ve ever said “the last time” it’s been a lie so I won’t pretend I won’t dive in again in the future, but here’s a short sampling of all the times I’ve been “over him” over the years.

Yeah.

Totally over him.

The nice thing is that the trauma has blocked so many of those early memories that it’s nice to remember some of the sweet times. We watched bad horror movies together- I had forgotten. Your window was always open and FREEZING. I forgot that I could hear your boots and tell you were coming. So anyway. Just one excerpt and I’ll stop. In a strange way, this gives me strength, confidence.  I can stand here now and know that I’ll survive anything the world can throw at me. I can know that I have no reason for heartache, not now. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s an interesting study in time travel. 

***

You wrap your arms around me and tell me to stay, stay; purring in my ear in that way you do. You're so very very good at that. He doesn't have to know, you whisper, caressing my neck, shoulder, warm breath in my ear. And she?I hiss in reply, What will you tell her?

 Anything, or nothing. What does it matter. Stay with me tonight. Stay and be warm. It's so cold out... the windows open and it's refreshing to be here with you. Why go back to a lonely bed?Shrug you off and move away. Lying on my back with my head turned toward you, leaving a pillow between us so I can't see your eyes. Goddamn those eyes. Breath in and out, in and out, and you are beyond exhaustion, I can tell in your voice.

So why not? Your breath is on my neck again, you know I hate that and love it too. You smell of beer and you need to shave, your chin is tickling my neck maddeningly. Sit up and wrap my arms around myself for a moment, gathering the strength to swing my legs out of your bed. Find the shoes in the dark-much easier then nights before when it was a shirt and bra and pants. Open the door noiselessly in that way that I learned months ago and turn to see your form on the bed. Well goodbye then, good luck with life."Want to answer with something sweet and poetic, but not so.

 Bye.

***

Here’s the thing about time travel. At some point, you must live in the present. I cannot keep going back and questioning my current reality. Not if I want it to survive. So, I’ll do my best to stay in the here and now. I’ll probably fail sometimes, I have years of assumptions and false conclusions to unlearn. I need to figure out how to say sorry- to him, to myself. 

Because I won’t jeopardize this for anything, if  someday it could turn into my reality. It would all be worth it. First though, I need to be whole- I need to finish all the stages of grief that I’ve cut short again and again.  Not for this man who’s worked his way back into my head (who am I kidding, he never left.) Rather for the things the other one did to me. I need to mourn the loss of my self identity and my trust. I need to find a way to move beyond it wholly. Because I want to be able to be all of myself. For me, and I hope someday for him. 

County Fair, Chapter One

There’s nothing better than the fair really. She had been to more than her fair share of counties and states, and they were all alike in their nostalgia of hometown pride. The first county fair was held before the country was a quarter of a century old, but somehow no matter how they started every fair seemed to long for the mid century graduate of a midway lit with electric bulbs and girls in crinolined skirts. This suited her just fine, it was always easier to find her a mark if he already wanted what she was selling.

Walking past the boulevard lined with hucksters calling for patrons to step up and try their “luck” at the decidedly rigged carnival games, she felt eyes on the back of her head. Pausing, she pulled out her compact. It had been her grandmother’s once, but she had filled it with her own special rouge. It’s mirror sent light dancing over her skin but in it she could see the man behind her left shoulder. He was talking to a buddy, but his eyes kept drifting to her waist and her bare shoulders.  There was something about his gaze  that was picking at the back of her mind, but the more she searched her mind the further it slipped away.  Mentally shrugging she dug in her purse for lipstick- American Beauty, her signature color. Checking the mirror once more, she slipped her things back into her purse and continued her slow walk down the avenue. A  man leaned against a display of  oversized stuffed bears in front of a wall of targets, water guns waiting at the ready in front of him.  

“Wanna play sweetheart?”

“Oh... no. Thank you but I’m terrible.” She was about to walk away on when a voice behind her made her pause.

“I’ll play for you, if you keep the prize.”  Turning she saw her mystery man, up close his blue eyes were softer grey and she could see the threads wearing at the edge of his green cap.

“That doesn’t seem hardly fair!”

“Sure it is. I got no use for a bear this big, but I been looking for a reason to show off for my buddies all afternoon. I win, you carry the bear and I can tell all of them I talked to a beautiful girl. Even trade.”  There was something about him that made her want to stop, but she was already in too deep. She knew it the moment he spoke. 

“All right then, swell.”  Grinning he hunkered down over the gin and waited for the attendant to half heartedly call for a challenger to 

“STEP RIGHT UP, STEP RIGHT UP.” At the sound of the buzzer the water made the little stuffed animals on their tracks climb higher and higher, until her champions hit the top rung as she knew it would. It was easy to pick a winner once you had been around for a while, and this guy may be a loser at any other place in the world but he was a winner when he was at the county fair. Grinning, her let her pick her prize- not an overstuffed bear but a soft little lamb that was looking neglected next to its gargantuan shelf mates. Thanking him, she turned to walk away but he caught her arm.

“Hey, you gotta boyfriend?” She felt color rising in her cheeks, somehow The straight forward nature of the question made her insides squirm. Romance is not what it used to be.

“No, I haven’t had a beau in some time actually.”

“Well then, mind if I walk with you?” 

“Sure, is your friends don’t mind.” He grinned, it was a little lopsided but no less charming.

“The guys are drinking bud over at the tent, they don’t know which was is heaven and which way is hell, let alone what I get up to.”  They set off around the edge of the midway, he was careful to match his pace to her high wedge sandals. 

“I haven’t seen your around here before.  Did you come down from the city or are you just passing through?”
“Oh, I won’t be in town long. Just a couple days- but everyone told me I had to come down here, I guess there’s a tractor pull later that everyone’s excited about.” She knew by looking at him now that she had him. His eyes lit up and she could see actual excitement in his smile.
“Yes ma’am, my cousins organizing it. Been a family tradition now since right after World War 2, my great uncle started it.”
“Well then I guess I’ll have to stay and watch, mustn’t I?” 

“I sure hope you do.” A crowd of teens swept past, girls in jean shorts- could they rightly be called shorts she wondered? Young men in shirts proclaiming their high school graduation year. They were near the food tents now, and she could tell that the pull of his friends and beer was getting stronger. She stepped in close enough to smell his musk, it was hot and still somehow he smelled like pine and hay and all sorts of nice things.
“I better let you get back to your friends, but I would love to see you later if you don’t mind.” She was looking right up into his eyes now, she could tell that having her so close tilting her head up to his was causing him an internal battle. The beer won, as she knew it would.
“I sure as heck don’t mind. See you around six? I’ll be at the west gate of the grandstand.”
“I can’t wait.”  She walked away, weaving through the crowd and feeling his eyes on her back.
She had him.

Dream kisses

Babe your kisses are keeping me up. You are 206 miles away (I checked) and all I can think about is the feeling of your lips brushing both my cheeks and then landing on my forehead, butterfly fast and so cherished. Had you ever kissed me that way before? I can’t remember, but I don’t think so. I close my eyes and all of a sudden you’re standing in front of me again, down a long line of friends and family and you’re eyes are on mine, pulling me towards you with the magnetism I’ve never been able to avoid-
No. Stop. I cannot follow that dream to its conclusion because if I do and it doesn’t come true, I may never pick up the pieces. It’s a survival habit to stop that one.
Toss and turn and try to turn my thoughts back to your kisses.
Kisses that trail down me and taste like red wine and whiskey, terrible idea to mix them on an empty stomach but we have and now I can feel the water and the wine caress my skin and you following after.
Is this what I imagined?
Yes and no. My imagination couldn’t go beyond the cramped and dirty communal shower stalls, the white curtains stained with who knows how many years of detritus. Hairs stuck to the walls from the girls who haven’t yet figured out how to clean up after themselves, squeaky flip flops that you have to grip with your toes in order to keep your feet from touching the stall floor.
And yet, in my minds eye you did kiss me. You kissed me and loved me and maybe that is true now. It is true now. If I am to move forward, I’ve got to believe what you say. And you do say it.
I wonder if you know how many creative ways I kept from telling you that I loved you, once. All the times I told you “I feel for you hard... head over heels... infatuated, intoxicated...” what I meant was love. Simple, as pure as my heart could be- I gave it to you. Before I ever broke. When I still believed in white dresses and Jane Austen hero’s. I thought you were Wickham, but maybe you have been Henry Tilney all along. Teasing, I never know when you’re being serious- with dreams and ambitions and the ability to realize them.
Let me be a part of your dreams, love. Let me be your Catherine. Awkward maybe, endearingly so. But trusting. Loving by wholes and not halves.
When all is said and done, I wasn’t ready for you before. Yes. You intoxicated me. I thought you were worldly and sweet- but it never would have worked. I didn’t know me yet. I’m still working it out. But- if I have children it will be with you. Only with you. Before,  that was all theory, but now- I want reality with all its sharp edges and hard work. I want to chase waterfalls and clean up messes with you. I want the white dress. I want the picket fence. Enough to give up my life’s work? Maybe. Probably.
I don’t want to be your almost lover. I want to be your forever.
I can’t believe this is real. But it is, somehow.
Maybe I’ll close my eyes and go back to your kisses and that long walk down the aisle. Maybe this time I’ll let myself keep walking to see what happens.

Unreal

My heart hadn’t been my own for so long, I wonder what life was like without you. I don’t want to know. I just read and re-read everything I’ve written and the only common theme is blue eyes and dimpled grins and dirty blond hair. I’ve murdered you, begged for  you, loved you, lusted over you- I’ve tried a million times to convince myself that I can cut you out of my life, carve you out of my heart. It’s never worked, I don’t think it ever will. I don’t want to. I want you babe, I want it all. The house and the kids and the dog that you told me once you wanted, the dreams I found when I was still more girl than woman, I want them all now more than ever.
Maybe this time it will work.
Maybe this will break me beyond repair.
Either way, I’m not willing to not try. You’ve been in my dreams for too long, I would rather be broken than live in this purgatory forever.
I guess this post is my one in roughly three of everything I write that’s about you.
I don’t care.
I love you. Now and probably forever.
So there’s that.
I hope you wait for me.

Whoosh

The day is warm, but not uncomfortable so. Summer is finally starting to turn, and for Charles this means more people walking the trails. More people to watch. More people to save. Every stride  he takes up and down the uneven stone steps is learned, he’s been walking this path every day for the last five years. Ever since she left him. He’s watched as the trail changed, noticed as trees fall over the cliff banks one by one and change the course of the creek subtly; in a thousand years the whole course of the falls will have changed, evened out- this land is living memory and Charles is a part of it.

He walks for her. 

Up and down the stairs like they used to do, when things were good and happy. Some days he feels like she’s still here with him. He always wears the same thing he was wearing the day she left- black shirt, black shorts and a smile. 

Today he’s watching a woman who’s standing on one of the bridges. He’s already passed her twice, once she was lying on a rock near the parking lot, staring at the canopy of leaves overhead. He didn’t recognize her then, but then she and her companion passed by him on the stone stairs  and their eyes met. Even as his mouth opened for his customary greeting he recognized her.

“Good day.” 

“Hello.” 

The couple is gone before anything else can be said, but now she’s standing there alone again- too good to be true, it must be a sign. She’s come back at last. Charles's  pace quicks towards the bridge, she is reading the graffiti on the rail, absorbed in the scratchings of faded romance and family vacations. Too easy. It’s too easy. 

Charles  is standing so close to her by the time that she realizes he’s there that she tries to step back, but the bridge railing cuts her flight short. It’s always this way, animal instinct is outsmarted by human preparation. 

“Good day, Elenor.” 

“Um, hello- I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.” 

She steps to the right, and Charles shifts his weight almost imperceptibly to counter her.

“Oh no dear, I know you- don’t you remember me?” 

She’s starting to look frantically over his shoulder now, trying to find her boyfriend or fiancé or whoever she’s cheating on Charles with this time.

“No, I don’t know you and you’re sort of making me uncomfortable- I’m sorry I have to go.”

She turns to step to the side and in one fluid motion Charles’s hand is on her wrist and twisting it so that she turns involuntary, his other hand clamps tight over her mouth. For a middle aged man, Charles is in very good shape.

She’s writhing now and trying to throw off his hand to scream- but even if she gets does there is no one to hear. The cuckolder is already dead. 

“Elenor, come now. You don’t need to be this way.” Charles puts an arm around her neck and slowly, gently begins to apply pressure. She fights at first but eventually sags, and as she drops he scoops her into a fireman’s lift. 

With a grunt, Charles walks up the trail two steps at a time until he comes to Their Waterfall, the one with the cave cleverly hidden behind the cascading water. The whoosh of the falls are deafening, but Charles doesn’t mind. No one can ever hear Elenor over the noise. 

He slowly deposits her on a moss covered boulder, and moves further back into the cave to gather the necessary equipment. On his way he greats the other Elenor’s he’s collected, 9, 8, 7, 6, and 5 still have white bones, 4, 3 and 2 are covered in a soft fuzz of  algae. 1 is almost completely greenish  brown now. 

But ten, ten will be perfect. 

Charles hums as he prepares, singing their song to himself. 

He always finds her. 

Always.