Second Person Stories I

You were tiny. You looked so young on that couch sipping a rum and coke. Your shiny, perfectly placed hair falling onto a sundress of blue with miniature red flowers. Flicking the tip of your strategically worn boot. You scrunched your nose at him; bared teeth. I used to do that. Just twenty-one. Just trying to be what he wanted or what you thought you were supposed to be. You wouldn’t believe the hurtful words you’re capable of now. The ones that drip off of your tongue in the mess and in the tears. The ones that anger him and break his heart. You won’t believe the disappointment in your heart when he tells you he has nothing to say. You will forget the way you flicked the toe of the upper of your crossed legs in that floral dress that you hoped he would love. The next time you reach for the base of his head to gently scratch his scalp you will both stiffen before you adjust and you’ll know it’s half-over. It will feel as if someone vacuumed out some of the love you once felt stranded in your throat from your insides. The love you felt when you were sitting in the car, stuck in snow, and the very silhouette of his face and shoulders in the darkness of the car had you well up with an unbearable loveliness that gathered in your throat like a laugh. You will lose it and always miss it. You will miss the way his teeth gave his lips their shape. You will miss the smell of his t-shirts in the hamper. You will cry yourself to sleep two years after it’s over, just because you can’t bear the thought of having partially let it go. You will relate every song that says anything about a boy and a girl to that night when you scrunched your nose, before you stopped flicking your toe, when reaching for the top, back of his neck felt so right to you both. You’ll miss the weight of his body. His opinion. His untimeliness. You’ll miss the way he was so willing to knock you up, to carry you around, to call at three a.m.

He will forget the way you flicked your boot, glanced below your eyebrows, and moved in the light of the early mornings, but he will not forget you all together; just mostly. You will forget that the inside of his arms was ever cumbersome, you’ll forget that you ever wanted out, and you will wish to be back there...if just for a night.

And it will all eventually be reduced to one of the many reasons you just can’t drink rum.