Elastic Love

1

It was October sixth when the breeze finally started to caress the Tennessee fall with a chill and leaves braced for their metamorphosis of colors. It was the two-year anniversary of when he left and now it felt, to her, like a hazy dream all slowly fading from her memory. She had managed her way through graduate school but with his departure she struggled to pick up a book or fill a blank page with her own words. Now she sat on the ledge of the bayside window in the dusty, old upstairs of the only bookstore in town, their meeting spot, struggling to write something, anything. They used to just sit next to each other for hours on end reading without the exchange of a single word. She leaned into the glass and let the heat from the sun burn the skin on her back and shoulders. After a moment her eyelids fluttered open at the inconceivable scent of him, woody with a mixture of fresh air, black coffee, and vanilla bean laundry detergent. Dark chocolate brown curls ascended the creaky wooden stairs in front of her. His lightning blue eyes pierced into her muddy brown ones. He stood there with his shoulders weighed down into a slouch.

"Catherine," he said, "you're here."

"That's funny coming from you."

"Your dark humor becomes you." A smile crept onto his face.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" She felt her cheeks grow hot.

"Someone who loves you," he said slowly, while reaching forward to grab both of her shoulders lightly.

"It's been two years. You don't know me." She shouldered out of his reach before he could touch her because she didn't want to be wrapped up in his arms and lose her wits to him again.

"Don't act like you've changed drastically in two years' time and like our time together means nothing to you now." He ran a hand through his curls, tugging at the roots.

"Everything we had was a lie," she said.

"I love you," he said, "I didn't leave you because I wanted to."

"Then explain it. Better yet, tell me a whole fucking story, the best one yet. You were always good at making up stories." She laughed a little too loudly. "I used to love that about you."

He grimaced. "I left because I knew I wasn't good for you. But I came back for you. Nothing about the way I felt for you was a lie or has ever changed. It's you. You're it for me. It's always going to be you."

Love is terribly dangerous. The more of him there was the more she sank into it like a rich chocolate mousse cake, savoring every taste. Then he was swept away with the wind, without a word and her world became blurred, out of focus, and disoriented.

"You have a really sick way of expressing that," she said, shoving her hands into her pockets.

"I can't change what I did but I'm back now and I can explain it." His eyelids served as a dam against the brimming of tears.