Seeing What She Sees

house

You wander alone long enough, you see it. Couples so completely melted into one another that the world fades away. You face this gap in your life with less willpower each day. You bump into stationary objects; drop items that mean little to you, carelessly. You go on.

It sometimes happens that you come across someone else looking at the same lost couples. It rarely means anything. But sometimes, it does. Once, I suppose, it might mean everything. Alex and I crossed paths this way.

And suddenly the world itself melted away for us. We became that couple, unconcerned with the stares and laughs. We heard nothing but our own panicked breathing; felt nothing but our own desperation for time, more time.

We find ourselves alone for the first time in the most unlikely of places, away from the crowds; out of the wind, but still among the outside air, heavy with the winter perfume of new frost. We rest a moment, stare at each other. I brush a lock of hair from her eyes, tuck it neatly behind her ear. Pull it loose so that I might do it again.

Then she, perhaps recognizing the pleasure I take from this game, wants to play, as well. She reaches, I feel her hand brush my cheek, gently. And then her eyes focus, as though seeing something in me that I have not yet noticed before about myself. Something that only the other person you’ve always sought can possibly ever notice. I feel her fingertips upon my earlobe.

And then sudden, piercing, mood-breaking pain.

‘Ow!’

She pulls back her two fingers, the offending ones. Between the index finger and thumb she holds a tiny hair. She observes it intently.

‘Did you just pull that from my ear?’ I ask in stunned, dare I say soulbroken, shock.

‘Da.’

‘Okay, first of all, ‘Ow!.’ And secondly, WTF?!? Could we maybe wait until we get married before we start in with the chimp grooming?’

‘But, eet vuz steeking out.’

‘Okay, first of all, WTF!?!. And secondly, do you think maybe you could have ignored it?’

‘I couldn’t help eet. Eet stood out.’

‘Well, maybe we just concentrate on the other ear, all right?’

And then her eyes focus, as though seeing something else in me that I have not yet noticed about myself. Something that only the other person you’ve always sought can possibly ever notice. I feel her hand brush my cheek, reach towards my other ear.

I slap the hand away, posthaste.

‘Okay, would you knock that shit off, please?’