Shannon McIntyre - Again

I should have known. Really, what else could I possibly have expected?

“Expect people to be who they are,” my mother told me. She’d told me at least a thousand times.

And still…

I stare blankly at the note on the table. I want to be angry. I want to

• tear it
• shred it
• set it on fire

– at least throw it away. But I can’t feel angry. I can’t feel anything.

I’m stuck. Frozen. Staring at those words.

Again.

My mind lurches back two months to the last time he’d said them.

~~~

“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”

I’d had the same frozen feeling then. Like a horrible re-run.

“What? Why? What do you mean?” I fumbled for my glasses on the nightstand, squinting at the blurry hands already buckling his belt. “Are you leaving right now?”

“It’s better if I do.”

“Not for me.” I pushed my glasses up my nose and studied his face.

Blank. Nothing. Complete system shutdown.

Again.

He looked away, mechanically gathering his bits and pieces into his pockets.

• wallet, back right
• keys, front right
• loose change, front left
• gum –

He gestured toward me with the pack. “Gum?”

“Stop. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“I made a mistake.” He bent to tie his shoes.

“Two days ago you said breaking up with me was a mistake. You said – “

“I know. I’m sorry. I hafta go.”

As he started for the door, I grabbed his hand. His big, beautiful hand. So many memories in those five fingers:

• lighting my cigarette as he introduced himself
• cupping my breast as he fell asleep
• wiping tears from my face the night my mother died
• sneaking under my skirt on the long drive to his sister’s house
• waving goodbye to me five months before

I remembered that wave, long and slow, fingers spread. Casual.

+++

The casualness of that wave – it was so incongruous. Nothing in that moment had fit together at all –

• the casual wave
• his blank eyes
• my tears

– these were scraps of separate moments, not a single event. I had felt so surely that moment was wrong, didn’t fit, wasn’t supposed to happen.

+++

That moment hadn’t fit. Nothing had fit since. Nothing until he showed up, five months later, and that hand held mine. Tears opened his dark eyes and I glimpsed once again the glorious depths of his soul as he said “I made a mistake.”

And last night, in my bed, when that hand cupped my breast, everything fit.

Again.

• our bodies
• our hearts
• our souls

My eyes dragged up from his hand to those blank eyes. I felt a chill where his soul no longer pressed against mine. A squeezing in my heart as it struggled to pump alone. He had left me already.

Again.

I dropped his hand, laid back in bed and rolled over.

Staring at the wall I heard

• footsteps
• door opening
• door closing

As tears soaked my pillow, I wondered if he waved.

~~~

I pick the note up and stick it to the fridge with the magnet that reads “Boys are Stupid”.

I should’ve known. I won’t forget.

Not again.