I've heard a lot of people talk about meeting old friends after many years and talking like nothing has changed, like no time has passed at all. That didn't happen. She arrived after ten years, and of course she wanted something--everyone wants something, that's how people work--and we talked for hours, not in spite of the years, but because of them. That time happened.
There's a strange intimacy in talking to someone you loved once and then haven't seen in ten years. You can tell them the truth; you no longer have to fear hurting or being hurt, knowing or being known, because it's already happened. It's powerful. So I made her tea that she didn't touch and she asked about one of my new scars and I told her that all of the old ones still hurt.
When we'd finished talking--dancing around what we wanted with the full knowledge that's what we were doing (and I hate how 'dancing around' implies a level of pretense; the beauty of dance is watching two people in perfect control making something beautiful together)--I took her back to my little flat, navigating the frozen streets, and I made her another cup of tea so she could not touch that one, too.
And then, when we were truly alone, we could finally start pretending that she wouldn't be gone in the morning, that she was just as safe and warm as she always had been, and that after carrying so many burdens for so long I still had anything left to offer her. In the morning the sun would rise and the ice would melt and after she left, we would both have another memory to carry with us.
No comments:
Post a Comment