Is this it? I ask
The sweat dribbles down my back, I notice my palms getting clammy but, I refuse to let go of the five fingers I hold on so tightly if only to fuse them with my own.
She doesn’t answer, she doesn’t look at me.
I tug a little harder, is this it? I ask again
She looks at me like she did, the night she came into the bar as I waited tables, as though I was waiting, saving a place just for her.
She looks at me like my world isn’t tilting on its axis and very quietly she says, “you’re so brave”.
I did not feel brave. I pushed my hair away from my face as I did at the bar that night when she ordered an old-fashioned and I thought, “there’s nothing old about you, maybe there is but I like it”
“You have to let go now”, her words bring me back to the present.
“I told you this wouldn’t last very long, I told you once I got a ticket, I would be on my way”. She is not looking at me, I’m no longer looking at her. The tarmac blurs into nothing. I don’t feel her fingers slip or the tears roll down my face or hear her goodbyes.
I’m just still, hoping if I stand here long enough, she’ll kiss me and stay.
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