Bliss

twenty eight

Where is both nowhere and everywhere. It's aimless at best, downright torture at worst.

There was the park about an hour back. The last vestiges of happiness clinging to the grass under the sprawling oak where Spencer and I laid not even four days before, immune to the truth of our relationship—that is its inevitable failure.

Then the grandstand, where we shared our first kiss when we were fourteen. It was a good kiss. Perfect in that there were no others to compare it to. It was also quick, blink, and you miss it, our lips brushing against one another for a fleeting second that managed to feel like it could last a lifetime.

We kissed once more in Jess' back garden on her fifteenth birthday, the pink fairy lights casting a playful glow across his pudgy cheeks. Then, in a move that took me by utter surprise, he asked me on a date when we were sixteen, and kissing him got better until it felt as natural as breathing.

Anyway, after the grandstand, I found myself on Milton Street. First in the bookstore, a hardback copy of The Great Gatsby capturing my attention. The cover was apt in its golden ode to modernism. It glittered in the same way as Elliot Duke's towering sculptures, but where he worked in silver, the lines that zigzagged across the cover were bronze. I flicked through, admiring the regularity of the printed word, before purchasing the book.

At this point, my wandering became aimless, for it was at this point that I ended up in the stupid artisanal café with one of their ridiculous lemonades. I've remained here ever since, alternating between over-indulgent self-pity and disgust.

I'm currently in the throes of a massive pity party.

A waitress brings over another lemonade. It's tinged pink with a thin lemon wedged onto the glasses edge. She glances at my impulse buy and trails a pastel nail along its spine.

"I love The Great Gatsby," she says as she perches on the seat across from mine, her short legs wrapping around the chairs. "It's so romantic."

Romance was perhaps the last thing I thought about when I read it for the first time. Nick's scathing critique, however, left a lasting imprint.

"Everyone's pretty heinous," she admits, "but I think the lengths Gatsby's willing to go to are sweet."

"Not obsessive?" My pity's on the brink of disgust, for like Gatsby, I'm far too obsessed with my Daisy.

"Oh no, he's totally obsessed. But like, isn't he supposed to be? If you love someone as much as he loved Daisy, don't you get a little obsessed?"

"I guess."

"If you ask me, his fatal flaw is that he loved the wrong person." She hops up, her words impressing themselves onto my mind. "Nick would've been a much better candidate," she says.

"Not Nick," I laugh. "Gatsby would've only let him down. Or trapped him. Nick couldn't see him clearly in the same way Gatsby couldn't see Daisy."

She considers it for a second before nodding. "You're totally right. Anyway, you must think I'm an absolute crazy person for bombarding you like that."

"Not at all." I force myself to smile. It feels good. Unnatural, but good.

"I actually stopped by to say that we're closing in like half an hour," she says.

"Oh, gosh, sorry. I'll, I'll go."

"You don't have to rush," she smiles, waving a hand through the air. "And this last one's on the house."

"You sure?"

"Absolutely. You've been a dream customer. Quiet and well-read."

"Thanks for the drink," I say as I reach for the sweating glass.