Thomas
remembering at 10:58 p.m. on 2003-05-28
At fourteen...
My hands are twisted between the padded nylon straps of my backpack, twisted in anxiety, impatience for a closure that is just a few words waiting in my mind..to cross my lips and into his ears.
My sister looks at me with a scrutinizing brow, pierced and almost doubtful, she asks me if I am sure I want her to leave me here. I nod without looking up.
Climbing out of the compact, aging car, I squint into the August sun's blasting glare. Slamming the door with a metallic shudder, I give a small half wave to her as she speeds away.
The acute emptiness of being young, and by yourself.
It's scorching hot, as I timidly make my way, away from the slow moving people, that shuffle into the air conditioned Barnes and Nobles building.
I never wear shorts, so the heat incubates me, as I curl against the cement underneath the awnings.
My eyes strain around the corner, waiting in hope for the first glance of him That precious face, that breaks my heart over and over. That face that holds me in such facination I cannot breath in fear that he might dissolve before me.
He's already late...10 minutes...15 minutes...I dig around anxiously in my bag, trying to look busy...trying to look important.
My fingers touch the first page of a smooth, ribbon bound collection of paper, and I take a breath.
Pulling it out slowly, I gaze across the faint pencil markings....my soul on paper...etched in careful, drawings and words. My hopes, my dreams, my love.
I had been up since the night before, emotionally high on this creation, his voice in my young bones, his taste in my mouth.
This is to be my final cry for him. My final affirmation of love. My final advertisment that I am here, and real, and waiting. A secret promise that if he gives this up, it is a certain goodbye, and although I am terrified at that prospect...I cannot wait any longer for the high.
Time drifts by, like the bleached clouds above me...oblivious to the dirty street and humidity below. A sterile reminder for me to focus upon as the minutes, tumble into hours. Something clean in my world.
He never comes...
My fingertips touch the pale purple ribbon achingly. Dumbfounded and lost...the quarter drops into the pay phone with a hollowness that echos in the pit of my stomach.
I whisper softly to my sister's brash greeting...
"Please...come get me..?"
She comes to collect me like a lioness collecting her cub. Angry and ready to pounce on that poor boy's mortality. I look away...as the trees fly past the car window. Unwilling to admit to her my humiliation.
I drop those sacred pages in the mailbox...angerly scribed address on the front.
He had forgotten he said, when his stepfather asked him to help him with a job in portland. Work is so scarce he said, he was sorry.
He thanked me for the book...it was so beautiful...his mother showed it to everyone...
He never did understand.
My heart, forced upon him at last...
only to become lost on the coffee table.
My first attempt at love,
became my first--
In a long line of desperations
