IV

By the time our first fight had been fought, sharing a bed was almost a weekly practice.

Our first road-trip was with her friends. The photos – her rosy cheeks and freckles - they looked like The Doors album covers.

The following weekend a few of my friends came over. She insisted on tending the fireplace and I took out extra blankets. We went to bed when she suggested that I take more photos of her. Even after the photos it was a late night.

She left the party early one night. She asked me to come-by later. I already planned to. We began to share a mind.

She had typed a letter on her computer. It said that she didn’t want to hurt me. It said that if we talked about it then her resolve would break. It said good-bye.

I smiled at her not to be ridiculous and I tried to take her hand. Her sleeve was wet and the cigarette she held was bloody and my smile faded.

She cried. She fell asleep. I cried.

My SMS’s dwindled. I wouldn’t open up until the next fight, and the next. I began to doubt myself.

She asked “What are you thinking?” I told her “Nothing” while I wondered “Am I wasting your time?”

III

I was invited to her house for dinner. I asked “Isn’t it still early to meet the parents?” The next evening I took over a DVD and had some Yorkies.

We spent a lot of time doing nothing and I would greet the waking swallows as I arrived home.

We started dating right before first quarter break. I was there when her family packed for the coast. Her brother was disappointed that I didn’t go with. I was too.

I didn’t call her for that week. Telephones are the condom to my personality’s jizz.

She got back with a large packet of Chappies. Before kissing me and after every cigarette she would chew one. The packet didn’t last that long.

It was the friend’s birthday. She went out with her friends while we celebrated. I received an SMS later that evening. She wanted to know what I was doing, I said “Coming to see you.” She chose me over her friends.

We went to a lounge club. One of the doormen paid our entrance. She called it “randomly bizarre” and I was lost in her.

II

I wonder now if the details of our coming together was a warning. I took no notice when it happened.

I met my friend for drinks one night. He introduced her as one of his girlfriends. I told my jokes badly. She laughed anyway.

I stood at the bar. She came and stood beside me. I told her my name was Marc, she told me hers was Jane. I knew her real name; she knew mine.

I started to see a lot more of my friend. When she wasn’t with him he told me that she said hello.

If the coin read heads I would drink. If the coin read tails I answered a personal question. I flipped the coin. I swallowed a mouthful of beer. She flipped the coin. Her answer was “That’s harsh hey!”, she locked eyes with me and left the table.

She told me she didn’t want to complicate things. I told her that I liked who I was when I was around her.

There was someone after my friend and before me. She told me later that she wasn’t sure we would get together.

We had dinner and I didn’t talk. Her nervous reaction complimented mine and she talked until I kissed her. From then on she only smiled.

My friend took it very badly. They were still together when I asked her the question. I think she took it too literally considering how things are now.

I asked “What is the one thing that you want but you know you can never have?"

I

It’s about the time I was given a new beginning; the opportunity to grow and meet new people. I was involved with visiting the old sides of me thinking that I was already complete. This marked the beginning of the end for us.

I still reeled from and clung to the end of a future hope that navigated my thoughts.

It was like waking up inside the looking glass with your own person being the reflection.

I was used to things working out for me.

The beginning was easy but it ended in bloodshed. My perceptions were lagging and I made the wrong assumptions about the bloody cigarette she held. As it turns out the physical scars are still on her wrists and the emotional ones still on my heart.

Ever since then I lived only in those few minutes and I held onto what distance there was left between us.

I lived in guilt about knowing the solution and not providing it since doing so meant that I was the solution. So I never let myself meet the expectations and we walked away from understanding.

I ignored the new sides of me that I always ran into.