Looking Back

A fragment of a dream.

I flung arrows at him, shrieked and howled and raged when he walked away. 

He did not look back at me.

My skin bubbled red, flushed with anger and love, the color of the roses he gave me on our second date and the feeling of slipping through my own skin. Gravel dug into my knees to remind me that my body had crumpled to the earth, a bright and searing pain that I pushed into a corner of my thoughts, a forgettable space. He kept walking. 

The secrets he told me crawled out of my mouth, following him and tugging on his arms, his legs. Lies and terrible mistakes that could ruin him. Things he trusted me with. His stride faltered with each demon I released. 

He did not look back at me. 

Songs and jokes, the rhythm of a cheesy love ballad we’d skated to at the ice rink, a newly-false laugh that had always earned a soft smile in response. Me, meeting his parents over steamy soup and a formidable cold. Him, brushing cool fingertips over my cheeks, my arms, my stomach. Years of our lives, mixed together with friendships and fights and cool fall mornings over bitter tea and age-worn books. 

He stopped, but he did not look back at me. 

I whispered apologies into the wind, balmy and perfect, that followed a tripping cadence and stopped at his still figure. Daylight still filtered through the orange horizon, the last hours of a long May day lighting his tightened shoulders and darkening his silhouette. Long grass rustled on both sides of the path, sweet after a long day baking in the sun. A carpenter bee stumbled past my ear. A beautiful day, really, perfect for picnics and declarations of ardent affectations. Really f*****g great for my life to fall apart. 

No one tells you how to fall in love. No one said that it was messy and complicated, that you could love one or two or three people with equal fire. I tripped up because Jude was fire, unpredictable, a train-wreck waiting to happen. Jude did not bring me roses. Jude did not have cool fingertips. What Jude had was anger, a truck full of it, and a suspicion that I was hiding some anger too. I wish that I could say that I was drunk, weak, in a place where mistakes are supposed to happen. That would have made a better excuse.

In the middle of the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had, the happiest I’ve ever been, I let s**t slide sideways and jumped off the gravel path. Love is messy, and messier when it’s with two vastly different people. When I first slept with Jude, guilt spent a good week vacationing in my gut, kicking me when I went home and lied to him. Twisting my heart when he asked how my retreat was, shooting me as I lied, easily, and pressed a warm kiss to his cheek. The second time was smoother, and so on and so forth. Once the thrill wore off, I got reckless. I wanted to be caught. And so I was.

On that perfect summer day, he found me tanged up with Jude, drunk in the back of a red pick-up trunk. It didn’t feel real. When I clambered out, Jude calmly walked into the driver’s seat and pulled away, off into someone else’s life. I was left with his blonde hair, his downturned mouth, his shining eyes. I couldn’t speak, at first. Neither could he. 

I tried to explain the unexplainable. Washing away impossible stains with flimsy words and tepid water. He took a step away. I talked faster, utter nonsense. Another step. Desperation earned a turned back.

So I flung arrows. Stuck in place on a gravel road, I screamed that he wasn’t good enough, that I needed more and it was his fault. I cried and yelled and collapsed when the futility hit head on. 

Once my sorry filtered through the wind, he began to walk again. The steps were slow, measured, sure over the crunching gravel. Dust kicked up under his heels, gray as twilight.

“I love you, please, please, I love you. I love you. Please.”

He did not look back at me. 

Author's Note

It's been such a long time since I've written anything- this is stream-of-consciousness blather, essentially, and I'd love some feedback. I have no doubt that there are grammatical mistakes that I've missed, so please point those out. Thanks a million!!