Night, an indoor lap pool, the room is the length and width
of the pool plus an extra four feet on all ends for walking, sitting, placing
shit whilst working out. The lights are out, but ample skylights allow for an
overeager full moon to illuminate the room like a million candles—all soft and luminescent,
rounded edges heavily outlined by deep shadow lines. The whole thing felt like
the sonic qualities of Shlohmo’s “Don’t Say No,” which ends up being
appropriate.
I was in the pool and naked. Not in a sexy way, just because
that’s what you do when lounging in a moonlit pool in the middle of the night.
Up against the wall at about the halfway mark, elbows up on the deck to keep
from having to do anything with my hands and arms. She slowly came at me
through the water with a look that I knew all too well.
She stopped right in front of me, her arms not fighting
their natural buoyancy, gently swishing aimlessly like an underwater kelp
forest. I missed those arms. She was naked too. Again, not for any sexual
reasons. It was just the proper attire for such environments. She looked
through my eyes and into my brain, that serious, pained, confused, and longing
look that we’ve all seen at least once in our lives if we’ve lived at all.
“I know you love me still. I know it’s killing you.” Her
voice was hushed in the dark, muffled by the water and the small space.
“No shit. I’ve made no effort to mask it.”
“You know…we can’t… you had your chance.”
“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t mean it can’t fuck with me a little,
does it?”
And with that she propelled herself into me, her arms up
over my shoulders, clinging like a scared child, so tight that if it were a hot
day and we were two cassettes left on a dashboard, we would have fused together.
I dropped my elbows off of the decking and slid down into
her arms. My arms reflexively wrapped around her, tight, desperate, and my face
buried into her neck. Not for a kiss, that would have been out of line. This
naked, desperate hug was only about 98% out of line. No, I nuzzled in to her
soft, long neck just to feel her warmth, to experience her smell again. It was
the only thing in this world that I missed.
She pulled her neck away as she hugged me tighter.
“No. We can’t kiss.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Her being so slight, so tiny, so perfect in my arms, I let
go with one arm but left the other which wrapped clear around her so that the
tips of my fingertips were touching the front of her ribs on the opposite side.
I knew that letting go was going to be impossible. I knew that letting go was
going to be necessary.
“I hate you,” she said, looking directly into my eyes. I
knew it was the safe thing for her to say. I knew it was more of a declaration
for her than it was for me, as if she was training herself to try to feel what
she knew she should feel.
“I know,” I said, agreeing for the hundredth time, looking
down into the water between us as I let go of her, paying close attention with
my hand of every millimeter of her sipped away and out of my arms, away from
me, for good.
She backed up about a foot, the silence and bullshit in the
air was denser than the water we were standing in. I wished someone would rush
in and tie an anchor around my neck, throw me into that silence and bullshit
and let me drown in it. It wasn’t an unreasonable desire, but literally
drowning in a moment was a silly and self-indulgent literary wish that just
made one look like a sappy douche.
We stood like that for a moment, in the dark, in the silence,
and then the door to the poolroom opened and in came her boyfriend.
“What’s up, guys?” he said jovially, radar clearly oblivious
and unused. She looked over at him and painted on a smile that I could see
through like it was the frame of a window that had been kicked out by misguided
anarchists.
He waded into the pool wearing baggy shorts and an oversized
t-shirt, cuz that was what you wore when lounging in a moonlit pool…
He was a good guy. Short, unimpressive, I had no ill will
towards him, but sometimes I wished that a rogue meteor would destroy him. And
whenever I thought that I swapped him for me at the moment before impact
because I knew it was a bad thing to think…every day.
She drifted over and touched him on the cheek for a second
then excused herself to go do whatever it is that women do when they excuse
themselves. I made the world’s most pained yet successful effort to not look
when she exited the pool. I didn’t need to look. The image of her body, her
hips, her walk were permanently burned into my brain. Still, a refresher image
would have been nice.
“Hey babe, turn on the light when you come back, hey? It’s
crazy dark in here. I can’t see a thing.”
I wasn’t looking, but I felt her aura droop a little bit.
Who the fuck wants a light on at a time like this? [And there’s me under that meteor again]
We sat in silence for a few moments, not much to say. We
didn’t NOT get along, but she was the unifier. Without her, we’d never have a
reason to be in the same room, let alone the same part of town.
And as it usually goes, because I have to kill uncomfortable
silences, I ask, “So, you heard that new Machinedrum album yet? Good stuff.”
He responded with a regretful negative and we prattled on
about this and that for a few minutes that felt like a thousand hours.
I woke up before she came back.
