/She's pretty.
I'll give her that much.
Well, that much. and you. Though, I'm not sure I had much of a choice in that. I was, after all, dead for two years.
And you know how that goes./
/I see you with her. And you look happy. Dare I say it- happier than you ever were, ever could have been, with me. She says something to you, a brilliant smile breaking across her features as she leans forward and lays a hand on the lapel of your jacket.
You grin mischievously and grab hold of it, laying small kisses on each her fingertips, your eyes never leaving hers. Not for one second.
And I wonder. could that have been me one day? Or were we just doomed from the start?
Star-crossed lovers in some play?
I chuckle as I think on the possibility of our being the modern Romeo & Juliet. Since I've been back, it seems all I can do is propogate this melodramatic rut I've fallen into. My life is turning into some day-time soap opera, and all I can seem to do is sit back and watch, mugging the camera, head in hands./
/I don't like her.
Obviously.
And thank God people expect this. Thank God they understand it. Because I don't think I could handle the office life, or even life in general, if they expected me to be the picture of redemption.
Forgiveness is cheap.
You left me in the dark and I let you know how I felt about it- my words echoing off the walls of the office building as I said everything I'd needed so desperately to say. To relieve the pressure that had been building up in my head since I hit you that first night back.
Since I first found that I had been gone for two years, and that life hadn't waited eagerly for my return. It had gone on, winding, much like it had before I was even a thought. Before I was even some necessary inconvenience growing within Irina Derevko./
/Weiss has this thing about Chinese food. I think you might call it an obsession. The simple smell of the stuff drives the guy crazy.
Which can make for some rather amusing episodes involving his cat and an old newspaper. I think it was the first time I'd laughed in. well, in two years if you wanted to get technical about things.
I just stood and laughed. With my whole being, I let the feeling crash over me like a tidal wave and I think I might have been happy for a minute.
Then the phone rang. And though I tried not to, I saw it was your number.
The smiles faded from our faces and Weiss grabbed the receiver, mumbling some clumsy apology and quickly rushing into the next room- feigning normalcy as you asked him some random question about the hockey game.
The cat. the old newspaper. my happiness. they had all been fleeting.
Like us, I suppose./
/I wonder sometimes if it was love.
And then, I wonder if it really matters. I feel the way I feel, and if it wasn't really love than I don't want to think about what it would feel like if it really had been.
I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking of you, for absolutely no good reason.
Sometimes I think I can remember what it felt like to be with you, and its at times like these that your voice sounds the most real. The taste of your skin the most vivid.
I think back to what you said, after my feelings were laid bare in front of you. About the madness you'd experienced after my "death".
Lying there, tangled in Weiss' old sheets as the sky opens up outside, curled up with the memory of someone I can have no more, I think I finally understand what you meant./
Whiskey became my savior, in those first few months. I carried it, ironically enough, in a tiny flask that Francie had given to me on my 21st birthday as a gag gift.
She knew I didn't drink, and I'd promised myself I never would. A bad experience with a "boyfriend" in my first year at college had forever soured me against the wiles of alcohol.
Or, at least, that's what I though then.
But, as the nights grew longer and the memory of you ever more haunting, it seemed the best tact to find something that could dull the pain. albeit momentarily.
It was actually on a mission that I discovered how sweet the companionship of Jack, and Absolut and Sam could truly be. It was shot glass after shot glass until the morning as I waited in that Taiwanese dive, searching for the Man In Dark Glasses who would not come.
It, of course, couldn't help that your voice was yammering away in my ear the entire night.
Look to your right. Look to your left. That guy looks suspicious. Don't drink so much, Syd, you'll be impaired. Bla, bla, bla.
So it went, until I was nauseas from the noise, or the booze, or some horrid combination of the two.
Five hours, the coming of the dawn, and twenty five shot glasses later, the longest night of my life was over with you murmuring something to Weiss about Lauren expecting you home soon./
/It was silver. Engraved with my initials. A beautiful thing, really, to be carrying mouthfuls of death.
At first, my indulgences limited to the odd meeting, where I'd see you gazing at her from across the room. The times I'd walk in on you two in some random intimate embrace in the break room.
Obviously, I'd need a little medicine to dull the agony of having to remember that once, a very long time ago, that had been me.
And it had been good.
Soon enough, though, a quick taste wasn't enough. I needed more to feel better, more to keep myself together and survive the long, lonely plane rides home from the remote locations I'd stopped trying to remember the names of. Airport, after airstrip, hotel, after motel. things just started to blend together.
It was around this time, I suppose, that I took up another horribly self destructive activity.
I saw your face on every one of them. They were, of course, picked for such defining features- the fair hair, fine Roman features, aquiline nose. Not exact replicas, but similar enough to help me forget, for a simple blissful second, that they weren't you.
Nice guys, some of them. College students, married men, bachelors on the prowl- I tried not to care about the details. It was hard enough to do what I was doing without having to care about who I was with and, most importantly, why.
Sometimes, I'd feel the tears begin to well up. I pulled out the flask./
I'll give her that much.
Well, that much. and you. Though, I'm not sure I had much of a choice in that. I was, after all, dead for two years.
And you know how that goes./
/I see you with her. And you look happy. Dare I say it- happier than you ever were, ever could have been, with me. She says something to you, a brilliant smile breaking across her features as she leans forward and lays a hand on the lapel of your jacket.
You grin mischievously and grab hold of it, laying small kisses on each her fingertips, your eyes never leaving hers. Not for one second.
And I wonder. could that have been me one day? Or were we just doomed from the start?
Star-crossed lovers in some play?
I chuckle as I think on the possibility of our being the modern Romeo & Juliet. Since I've been back, it seems all I can do is propogate this melodramatic rut I've fallen into. My life is turning into some day-time soap opera, and all I can seem to do is sit back and watch, mugging the camera, head in hands./
/I don't like her.
Obviously.
And thank God people expect this. Thank God they understand it. Because I don't think I could handle the office life, or even life in general, if they expected me to be the picture of redemption.
Forgiveness is cheap.
You left me in the dark and I let you know how I felt about it- my words echoing off the walls of the office building as I said everything I'd needed so desperately to say. To relieve the pressure that had been building up in my head since I hit you that first night back.
Since I first found that I had been gone for two years, and that life hadn't waited eagerly for my return. It had gone on, winding, much like it had before I was even a thought. Before I was even some necessary inconvenience growing within Irina Derevko./
/Weiss has this thing about Chinese food. I think you might call it an obsession. The simple smell of the stuff drives the guy crazy.
Which can make for some rather amusing episodes involving his cat and an old newspaper. I think it was the first time I'd laughed in. well, in two years if you wanted to get technical about things.
I just stood and laughed. With my whole being, I let the feeling crash over me like a tidal wave and I think I might have been happy for a minute.
Then the phone rang. And though I tried not to, I saw it was your number.
The smiles faded from our faces and Weiss grabbed the receiver, mumbling some clumsy apology and quickly rushing into the next room- feigning normalcy as you asked him some random question about the hockey game.
The cat. the old newspaper. my happiness. they had all been fleeting.
Like us, I suppose./
/I wonder sometimes if it was love.
And then, I wonder if it really matters. I feel the way I feel, and if it wasn't really love than I don't want to think about what it would feel like if it really had been.
I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking of you, for absolutely no good reason.
Sometimes I think I can remember what it felt like to be with you, and its at times like these that your voice sounds the most real. The taste of your skin the most vivid.
I think back to what you said, after my feelings were laid bare in front of you. About the madness you'd experienced after my "death".
Lying there, tangled in Weiss' old sheets as the sky opens up outside, curled up with the memory of someone I can have no more, I think I finally understand what you meant./
Whiskey became my savior, in those first few months. I carried it, ironically enough, in a tiny flask that Francie had given to me on my 21st birthday as a gag gift.
She knew I didn't drink, and I'd promised myself I never would. A bad experience with a "boyfriend" in my first year at college had forever soured me against the wiles of alcohol.
Or, at least, that's what I though then.
But, as the nights grew longer and the memory of you ever more haunting, it seemed the best tact to find something that could dull the pain. albeit momentarily.
It was actually on a mission that I discovered how sweet the companionship of Jack, and Absolut and Sam could truly be. It was shot glass after shot glass until the morning as I waited in that Taiwanese dive, searching for the Man In Dark Glasses who would not come.
It, of course, couldn't help that your voice was yammering away in my ear the entire night.
Look to your right. Look to your left. That guy looks suspicious. Don't drink so much, Syd, you'll be impaired. Bla, bla, bla.
So it went, until I was nauseas from the noise, or the booze, or some horrid combination of the two.
Five hours, the coming of the dawn, and twenty five shot glasses later, the longest night of my life was over with you murmuring something to Weiss about Lauren expecting you home soon./
/It was silver. Engraved with my initials. A beautiful thing, really, to be carrying mouthfuls of death.
At first, my indulgences limited to the odd meeting, where I'd see you gazing at her from across the room. The times I'd walk in on you two in some random intimate embrace in the break room.
Obviously, I'd need a little medicine to dull the agony of having to remember that once, a very long time ago, that had been me.
And it had been good.
Soon enough, though, a quick taste wasn't enough. I needed more to feel better, more to keep myself together and survive the long, lonely plane rides home from the remote locations I'd stopped trying to remember the names of. Airport, after airstrip, hotel, after motel. things just started to blend together.
It was around this time, I suppose, that I took up another horribly self destructive activity.
I saw your face on every one of them. They were, of course, picked for such defining features- the fair hair, fine Roman features, aquiline nose. Not exact replicas, but similar enough to help me forget, for a simple blissful second, that they weren't you.
Nice guys, some of them. College students, married men, bachelors on the prowl- I tried not to care about the details. It was hard enough to do what I was doing without having to care about who I was with and, most importantly, why.
Sometimes, I'd feel the tears begin to well up. I pulled out the flask./