“I know.” I look over at him, search for the right words. “I needed to see you. And I didn’t want to make things between us any worse.”
He looks at me, perplexed. “Any worse?”
“You didn’t write me.”
“You didn’t writeme.”
He’s got me there. I take a long drag. “I tried to. But everything I wrote just wasn’t…enough.”
He’s quiet for a few minutes. “Same here.”
I reach for his hand, tentatively, and his fingers entwine with mine, his hold firm and assured.
“I was afraid things wouldn’t be the same between us,” I say.
He squeezes my hand. “I don’t want them to be the same.”
I stare at him.
“I want them to be better.” He closes his eyes for a second, then opens them. He withdraws his hand. “But I missed you. I missed you so much and now that you’re here…what if you go away again? What if you change your mind? I feel like everything is up to you. You see me when you want to. You come back and ask me to stay with you. When you want to.”
I suppose I was asking for this. I am not some hero, some shining knight come riding back into town to claim my love. This was a stupid thing to do, I see it now. Or rather, stupid to do it this way. I finish my cigarette and look around for an ashtray and see one by the record player. I get up and put it out. Behind me, I feel his heavy gaze.
I falter. “It’s not all up to me.” I turn. “I don’t know what else to do besides what I want and what I want is to be with you.”
Even though I mean those words with all my heart, they sound empty right now. They fall like a flat balloon in between us, deflated and used. And he’s looking at me in a way that makes me think those words have come too late. There’s an uptick of panic inside me, but I don’t push it away. I let myself feel it completely, embrace it. I’ve come to the conclusion there’s no point in avoiding my own feelings. And my panic births desperation, to get on my knees, to just give him more deflated words. I’ve arrived back into his life too late, and I let him leave mine far too soon.
He stands up and looks down at his feet. His glasses slide to the tip of his nose, but he doesn’t bother to adjust them. “I want to be with you too. I’ve wanted to be with you. But it’s different now, isn’t it?”
“Doesn’t have to be,” I say.
“But it does.” He clasps his hands together, looking away from me. “I don’t want you to ask me to stay with you because of what happened or you feel guilty.”
“That’s not why I’m asking,” I say.
He bites his lip. “And I want to see you when I want to. Not just when you want to see me.”
I go to stand in front of him, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. I stare at the top of his curly brown head, hoping he’ll feel it. “It’s not because I feel guilty,” I say softly. “I can promise you that. And you can see me whenever you want, pal. Anytime.”
The simplicity with which he can convey his feelings, the exactness of it, the way someone can pluck an emotion out of a miasma of feelings and give it a name, makes me feel the deepest envy. He’s so sure of it, even now, even here in this afterlife neither one of us asked for.
But there are other ways to convey feelings.
I tilt his head up until his eyes meet mine. I cradle his face in my hands, taking my time to gaze at him, study the flicker of an eyelid, the hard line of his jaw. The piece of his hair that falls just over his temple, and I carefully push it away. I briefly brush my lips against his skin just to feel his warmth, just to feel the invisible parts of him that I can’t fully grasp, that I may never grasp.
“Can I kiss you?” I ask.
His eyes flick to the side and back to mine.
“Will you let me?”
After a moment or two, he turns his head away from me. “I still want time to think.”
It stings.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I’m just…”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m not going anywhere, pal. I swear to you.”
