Every Now And Then

The moon is a big yellow eye remembering what we have lost or never thought. That's why the moon looks raw and ghostly in the dark.

I've been sitting at this bar for hours, all day really. Some would call it getting drunk, others would call it drowning. I liked to call it meditating. I wasn't actually drinking the bottle of beer that sat in front me. I detest beer. I hate that cheap, bitter taste of the common man. I just wanted to hold it while I sat there, meditating. I needed the sharp coldness of the condensation to keep me in reality. Without it I would surely succumb to the numbness I couldn't escape.

A not so subtle cough at my side made me remember that I was not sitting here alone. I turned to look at the woman beside me, a blonde. She had been sitting there for awhile now, ever so slightly moving her chair closer and closer to mine. Every so often, her hand would "accidentally" brush my forearm as she reached for the basket of peanuts in front of me. She smiled when I looked over at her, her dark red lips turning up at the corners, suggesting, promising. It was a smile of want, of desire.

She asked me to dance. I let her grab my hand and lead me to the dance floor, I let her wrap herself around me, press her curves tightly into mine. For a second I heard the murmurings of some slow song coming from the jukebox, for a second I was tempted to run my hand over the bare skin of her shoulder, for a moment I felt a flash of desire.

For a moment.

This woman was warm, she was soft, she was nothing. Nothing. Suddenly I wished for the icy slide of the beer bottle on my fingertips. That was real. This wasn't. I looked into this woman's brown eyes, and all I could see was blue, that deep, dark blue that haunted me.

Her eyes had been blue.

Then my hand moved up her arm of its own accord, gliding over bronzed skin that was not nearly soft enough, idly playing with wisps of hair not nearly silky enough, not nearly black enough.

Her hair had been black.

This woman ran her hand down my chest, smoothly, stopping to lightly play with the buckle of my belt. There is no suggesting now, just telling, just promising. This woman wants me, yet I know that at the end of this song I will quietly return to my barstool, take one bitter sip of my neglected beer, and leave. And the woman will stand there, in the middle of the dance floor, confused and wondering what she did wrong. Eventually she will shrug it off, eventually she will dismiss me as an asshole, an insensitive jerk, and she will move on to her next conquest. But she will never know that she had just been wasting her time, she will never know the face I see when I close my eyes, the face that haunts me, the face I can't forget. She'll never know that it was her arms I felt when I held her close, swaying to the rhythm of the music. She'll never know that it was her perfume I smelled, her body that made me shiver. She'll never know that the instant I opened my eyes to see blonde hair and brown eyes was the very instant she lost me.

Because there had only been one, one woman, one lover I had given my heart to. But she didn't want it. There is only one woman I want. But she doesn't want me. But there are times, like now, when I am holding a woman close to me, when I can feel her warmth crowding me, comforting me, that I can close my eyes and pretend, for a moment, that things had turned out differently.

But of course they hadn't. So now I live my life in these minutes, snapshots, forgotten moments of another time. Because it's all I have left.

And now I'm back in my apartment, fingering the ivory envelope I have yet to open. I don't need to open it. I already know what it says. She sent it to me, to make me remember or to make me forget I really don't know. I tell myself the only reason I remember her is because there was no goodbye; just her leaving with an unspoken apology on her lips and regret in her eyes. No goodbye, no end to our relationship. I like to tell myself that despite my resolve to forget I remember only because I had no closure. I can't forget something that never really ended.

But of course that's just bullshit.

Years after she had left me, years later when the ache hadn't dimmed and the cold got sharper I let myself wonder what she was doing. There was just something about that time of year, the cold bleakness of winter that always reminded me of her, of us. There was nothing bright about us, we were cold, empty, lonely. Two wandering souls lost in winter who had accidentally found each other. And that worked for us, it made what we had beautiful, poignant. Sadness, without it we never would have been, and sadness lives in the winter, in that gray and dreary time when the world is depressed and cold.

So sometimes, only in winter, I wondered what she was doing, where she was. I picked up the phone once and dialed her old number. I didn't know what I was going to say, hell, I didn't know if I even wanted her to answer the phone. But I found my fingers dialing those old familiar numbers, numbers I didn't even know I remembered. When a strange, and distinctly male, voice answered I was tempted to hang up and forget my momentary lapse in sense. But I found I couldn't, I found myself asking for her, saying her name out loud. Her name sounded so strange out in the open, for so long I had heard it as only an echo in my head. To hear it out loud, to hear myself speak it was jarring.

The man on the other end didn't recognize the name. Are you sure? I remember asking. Yes. He said with certainty, finality. Then I hung up, stared at the phone in my hand as if it held the answers to my questions, and wondered, briefly, if she had ever done the same thing. I wondered if she had ever picked up a phone, found herself dialing my number only to hang up, not knowing what to say or why she called.

And right now, at this moment, her envelope in my hand, I wondered if she knew what she was doing right now. Because right now she's tearing me apart with her memories, she's emptying my heart with her stupid fucking letter. And even now I can hear her call, I can hear her whispering my name each time that cold, winter wind blows.

Hell somehow exists in the distance, between what happened and what never happened

I saw her not long ago. Yeah, a couple of months ago. That's what started this whole thing, that's what prompted my impromptu trip to the bar, the trip down memory lane, that's what prompted this pathetic self indulgent reflection shit.

It was in a coffee shop. Funny that I never remembered that first time we met, so long ago, until me met again in that same place by some twisted sort of cosmic fate.

We sat at that table, the one in the corner, where it was the quietest, and for awhile we just sat there, drinking coffee letting the silence grow into an uncomfortable tension.

"Did you miss me?" she finally said. Straight to the point, no bullshitting. I always liked that about her, except for then, when I think I could have used the inane small talk and idle chatter to gather my thoughts, create a strategy, an impenetrable defense that she could not get through.

"No" I said, taking a sip of my coffee, only slightly surprised by my nonchalance.

"Liar" she sad. I had forgotten, how much alike we were. I lied for self preservation. The truth only led to pain. I knew that, she knew that.

"I thought about you the other day." I didn't believe her. Maybe it was because she was looking out the window when she said it. Maybe it was because it was easier to think she never thought about me, easier to think that I could hate her.

"Really?" I asked, though it wasn't really a question.

"Yeah. I saw this car," she started wistfully, as if the memory made her happy, "it was like that silver one you used to drive."

"The BMW"

"Yeah, that one. Anyways, I saw one and it made me remember…" she trailed off, turning once again to gaze out the window. As if there was something about the memory that made her not want to look at me.

"Remember what?" I asked curiously. There was something there, in the way her hands twisted the napkin on the table, the way her knee was shaking slightly under the table.

And then she looked at me, really looked at me for the first time since we saw each other in line. Her blue eyes intense, bared.

"That feeling" she said, her gaze unwavering, "that feeling I used to get…with you." The feeling, that feeling. I remembered it, remembered it often. I never thought she did too.

"And?" I asked.

Her intense gaze softened at that, her lips turned up, ever so slightly at the corners in a gesture I had once been intimately familiar with.

"And I smiled." She said simply, as if her remembering what we once had was something simple. When it had never been. And then her smirk disappeared as her eyes bored down on me, as if she were searching for something within me, as if she were searching for a truth in my eyes. Maybe once, long ago she would have been able to find it. But not now.

"Did you miss me?" she asked again, only this time it was shaky, full of sadness and tears. And it suddenly hit me that maybe she had wondered what I had been doing since she left, it hit me at that one moment that she had missed me. I hadn't thought that possible.

"Did you?" she asked again, a whisper.

"Every now and then." I said. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the complete truth, I still didn't believe she deserved it.

"Every now and then?" she repeated, her eyes brightening.

"Yes" I admitted, "sometimes I wonder…"

"What might have been?" she finished for me. Yeah, I thought. Sometimes I wonder what might have been.

And that was it. That was the extent of our fateful reunion. Nothing dramatic, no tears, no confessions of love, of longing. Just half finished thoughts and whispered sentences. Half truths and lies. In a way it was comforting, knowing that nothing had changed, that we had not changed. And at the same time it hurt knowing that after all these years we still couldn't say the words.

I love you. God, they were just words, three fucking little words. She wanted me to say them that day. The need was in her eyes, shining and pleading. But I had ignored them, turned my back on her and walked away. As she had once done. And I hadn't seen her or heard from her since that day in the coffee shop, until now.

A wedding invitation. Her wedding invitation. It was funny really, because I knew she didn't love this man, couldn't. I wondered if he knew that. I knew what this was, I knew what it meant. It was her goodbye, the closure I had been looking for, that I had been denied. Perhaps now I could move on. But then, after all this time, a simple invitation wouldn't do, was not nearly enough to make me forget.

Five o'clock the invitation said. Right now it was four thirty three, twenty seven minutes away. So I grabbed my keys, threw the invitation on the coffee table, and sped away, as fast as I could, in a desperate and crazy attempt to get to that church.

When I got there, I parked across the street. I could see the long, white limousine out front, waiting for the happy couple to emerge. The chauffer was smoking; the smoke spiraled out of his window, slowly.

I contemplated going inside. I was dressed appropriately in a suit and tie, residuals from work. I hadn't taken the time to change before my foray into the bar. But I just couldn't bring myself go inside. I couldn't make my hand let go of the steering wheel and open the door. So I just sat there, imagining what was going in the church. I could see it all perfectly.

The dying sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows, the flowers in her hair. I could see the white lace, the warm glow of the candles, I could smell the sweet fragrance of her bouquet. No, I didn't need to go inside. I could see already, vividly and with perfect clarity, the hell that waited for me in there.

Her and another man.

And then those bells were ringing, thunderously announcing the marriage of this new couple. Those wooden doors opened up and she was suddenly there, white and gleaming and perfect. I could have sworn she saw me in that moment before she turned to whisper something in that man's ear. But I didn't stay around to find out. I drove off, not really knowing where I was going, not really caring, until I ended up on an old, lonesome river bridge.

I took the ring from my pocket. The one I had carried since the day she left me, the one that should have been hers. There hasn't been a single day that has passed that I haven't wondered if she would have stayed had she known. Not a single day that I haven't thought that things might have been different if she had only waited one more day.

Just one. But it seemed we were out of days now. She belonged to another, wore a different ring. I guess I won't have to wonder anymore. I watched the diamond sparkle, closed my eyes and pictured, for the last time, what it would have looked like on her finger, and prepared to throw it into the river, into that dark, murky abyss, where it belonged.

But then I heard the sound of crunching gravel and creaking wood behind me. I whipped around, ring still in hand, and found her standing there, in the middle of the old bridge, in her wedding dress.

"I knew you would come." She said, taking a step forward, a step closer to me.

"Did you?" Really, it was presumptuous of her. I had never believed her to be arrogant, or cruel. And what else could this be but cruel. She must have known what this would do to me. Had to have known.

"I wanted you to come." She said firmly. This time I took a step closer.

"Why?" Why? Was I wrong? Was the invitation more than a goodbye? Was it a plea?

"Because if you came I would know…" she whispered, staring at her feet. I took another step, my heart beating furiously, thunderously. I knew what she was asking, I knew what she was waiting for. I had spent all these years hating myself for the weakness that kept us apart. I had seen love break my mother, I had felt it break me, and I had seen it break her.

But here she stood, in another man's dress, ready to walk away from him, away from the comfort and security of never having to give herself completely to another, if I only I could say the words.

But I couldn't. They weren't in me to say. They weren't in her to say either. So I just held out my hand, and took one step closer. The diamond shined in the light, made her gasp.

"This was yours once" I said, staring at the ring in my hand. Transfixed by its sparkle, by the past it held captive in its depths.

"Is it still?" she questioned softly, reaching out one timid hand to touch it, lightly with her fingertips, as if to confirm that it was real. Her voice held so many question, so many desires. And that was it all it took, the touch of her hand, the look in her eyes, the hope in her voice. That was all it took to make me remember all the things I told myself I would forget. The way she smiled when I held her hand, the way she tasted, at night in the light of the moon, and the way she moved, like a warm breeze through my life.

"Is it still?" she repeated again, gripping my hand in both of hers, as if in prayer. I brought my other hand up to cup her face, my fingers faintly caressing her cheek, reveling in the softness of skin that I hadn't felt in so long.

Too long.

"Always" I said, my thumb tracing lips whose taste I still remembered, "always yours."

Always.

Always hers.

Always mine.

Too long I've wandered in winter