- -
He doesn't think about her often enough.
The plane has landed, and he is alone, through with layover after layover.
One, standing stationary with a briefcase that doesn't fit his fingers, not even
the handle he clasps; one, among many, standing still, as they are all moving.
He doesn't know why he feels so alone.
London could be beautiful if he was really looking. He hails a cab on the
wrong side of the street. It's yellow as a bee with a black stripe slashed
through the doors, thick, not like blood but like a tree trunk, only not so
much. He thinks it's confusing the way his thoughts are, and tries to shut them
off. It seems so much has been shut off. Not just lately, but maybe longer.
Maybe always.
There is rain that drizzles down to wet his hair as he ignores the umbrella
held down at his side, firm in the grip of his ice blue veined hand. Hair so
much darker than hers sticks to his skull and his forehead, pasted there
hastily by God's tears. He doesn't call them that. No one calls them that. No
one he knows. His hair is ever so much lighter than hers... But really, he isn't
thinking about her.
He isn't thinking about the way her hair smelled after being smashed through
the straightener, faintly burned. The way it felt: crisp, like a fresh waffle.
He never knew why she used a straightener when she had straight hair, but she
used it the day she found out about what caused a rift in her love for him. He
wasn't thinking about her then, he swears. No, not when he was blindly kissing
the necks and the breasts of those bridesmaid "female friends" of his, calling
them beautiful as if it were a pet name. If pet names were things tossed around
with no affection, but rather mere thoughtlessness. He never thought of that
singular her as he drove himself into those special female bodies that weren't
so special after all, with a desperation to get rid of some feeling inside of
him he didn't care to identify, this desperation bubbling up inside of him,
making him pound their insides to liquid as some form of nonchalance, some
unaimed malice.
He thought they were on a break, that they were over, he said, right to her
face. He was Ross and she was Rachel, and it was so sickening that he knew the
difference.
He can feel eyes on him as he musses his wet hair with his hand. Recycled
rain splatters everywhere to land on paper displays, important faxes. The
meeting wanes. He can see again her lips in that pout as she crossed her arms
over her chest, determined not to have The Fight. He plunged on. She was mad at
him -- she had to admit it! She had to admit it so it could be over! She was
acting like she didn't love him anymore and what he was most afraid of was that
he might care.
He never thinks about the blush in her cheeks the day that she sat forward on
the couch, before they prepared to leave. "I love you," she told him, with no
promise of a reciprocation. No assurance of one and no expectation. He liked it
that way. Or at least he thought he did. "Wow," he said. Because that was what
made girls swoon. That was what made moments like these memorable, what made
them like roses to be pressed between pages of favorite verses in the bible.
Wow.
Asked for his opinion, he glances up, feigning boredom to cover his
distraction. Mitchum will have his head when news of this meeting gets back to
headquarters, otherwise known as home. It's never been a home. A house does not
a home make. What is it idiots say? Home is where the heart is.
He doesn't like to think about his heart. Then he might have to think of how
he almost made it explode.
The first part of the memory he doesn't mind so much. Staggering drunkenly in
formal wear, giggling at the ripped bowtie that matched the one hanging
precariously around Finn's neck. Loving that accent that never failed to grow
louder when drunk, which, truth to tell, was ninety percent of the time. Gulping
beers like all-American dads, sipping martinis like wives of broken households.
Swigging whiskey like old homeless men. Old homeless men in black and white
penguin attire, scuffed shoes and matching bowties falling off the neck.
Slapping parachutes on his buddies' backs as they littered the countryside
with their expensive vodka bottles and cheap crushed beer cans. Barely paying
attention to his own safety equipment. Caring so much about hip-hop and
chandeliers in that moment, and being ready to fly.
Then flying without a goodbye.
One meeting turns into two which turns into five, and eventually he actually
is bored, though he can't get rid of thoughts that are tormenting him.
Bugging him, never leaving him alone. Chewing on him like gnats that haven't
been fed (if indeed gnats are ever fed) in years. He doesn't want to be
bothered. Doesn't want to think. Doesn't want to be here. Doesn't want to be
dead, but wishes he never woke up in that hospital.
He soared for the longest time, even when it felt like his ribs were being
crushed in, and his heart was deflating, his ears popping wide open, his eyes
exploding. When all went black, he wasn't finished. The night wasn't over. He
hadn't closed his briefcase, hadn't ended business yet with the sky.
He saw beer flowing, green olives on toothpicks, his mother's scathing
glance. At her.
He saw her.
Fleeing with him from his own house, the place he'd grown up in, the place
that wound never be his sanctuary. Leaving him to find solitude elsewhere.
Leaving him still searching. "I don't understand," she said. And that said it
all.
He saw her.
Working with him to somehow save the paper after Paris sunk the Titanic on
top of it. The icebergs were melting due to the global warming Paris initiated
with her personal hotplate, and ohh, the place was going down. But he saw how
Rory turned to him in her moment of need, asking without words, without
gestures, but in the language that lovers somehow find together and make up on
their own. The sweat on her brow as he made last minute phone calls, the way she
swept hair behind her ear in her haste to get her fingers on the computer
keyboard. Setting the layout, perfecting it, re-doing it. Giving him the credit.
Taking back what he would give her just because he gave it to her.
He saw...
The bag he bought her, glowing pink as the blush in her cheeks. Fresh with
the new car smell.
His favorite tie. The one she kept choosing, the one he'd never wear. He
still can't figure out why.
Her baby face, filled with admiration and respect, for him. Imagine that. Ace
has respect. For him.
Curls, in her hair. Oh, how her hair curled... when she said, "I love you."
"You don't have to say anything at all," she said. And he didn't. He didn't
want to.
He didn't want to.
It's been a week, shut up in this expensive hotel. He hates it. Hates the
summer showers, the radiant sunlight, the feel of The Beatles everywhere. London
is missing something. There's a name on his tongue that dies repeatedly as he
sulks, all alone. There is no Colin here, no Finn. No getting together with the
guys. No trash talking, no getting trashed. No trash in general, it seems. He is
so. sick. of this.
There's a whole wall of glass, looking out on the city. It looks nothing like
Hartford. Then again, nothing does. His plush velvet chair faces away from the
wall of windows, and he bangs his head back, against the glass. He thinks of
waking up in the hospital, and having trouble breathing. Having trouble
breathing, like he is now.
All shut up, in this life, alone and miserable. Hurting for no good reason,
ashamed. Without family, but what's new? Burdened by expectations, oh whine,
whine. He's tired. He's lonely, and he's tired. He wants the hospital back. He
wants to open his eyes again, after that lone black oblivion. He wants to open
his eyes and see what he never thinks about enough...
Her.
He wants to see her walk in, angsty and concerned, her hair hastily
blow-dried, her shirt tag sticking out. He wants to close his eyes and know
safety by the feel of her warm lips on his brow.
He bangs his head against the glass again, hard. Hopes for a concussion.
Sees the elevator doors closing, and the tears streaming down her face. Her
cheeks wet, her hair mussed. She wanted to come with him. She wanted to come. He
doesn't think about her often enough...
Bang against the glass again. Lightning zig-zags in the distance, marring the
charcoal, starless sky. He is a light bulb, clinking, turning on, his body
aroused, his eyes open. Tear ducts ready. Pupils zeroed on the door.
He doesn't need another concussion. He doesn't need another blackout. He
doesn't need to say hi to William and Harry for her. He doesn't need any of this
shit. He doesn't need to be anyone he's ever expected to be. There's no reason
for it. There's just no sense.
He's had enough. And he's decided. He knows what he wants now. He's been
thoughtless and without emotion, driving without the steering wheel.
Accelerating without a license. Killing himself.
He grabs his coat and in five seconds flat, he's out the door. He suddenly
knows what he wants. It's not London. It's not a sure bet. It's not the future.
It's her. He's headed home, finally, to her.
- -
end
