It's gross outside, and I'm in the back on the wrong bus. I'm holding two books: one I just bought and the other lent to me, kind of as a gift. Dangerously between my thighs barely rests a large Double Double - an old favourite. It reads 3:03 p.m., November 5th, 2023 on the flip-disc display above the entrance, which hasn't stopped seeming futuristic to me. I don't think I'll ever stop feeling that way.
Central Edmonton is an impermanent circuit building itself from random, wandering voices, coats, cars, birds, low-hanging clouds, cafes, theatres, Winners, birds, stoplights, downtown storefronts, and the remaining bits of snow holding out for the arrival of their brothers and sisters, due to come home in a few weeks. Bright red lipstick is smeared on the back of my hand, and I want to feel like whatever image in my head I have of being mildly slutty. An hour ago, I wondered if the guy working the till at Tim's could see that it was still left on my lips. Now, I know there wasn't any. The bit that's on my hand feels more special in knowing that only I know what it is and who it's from. Staring at it feels like a map or a photograph.
Waiting for this bus, I realized that I'm never going to be a slut, and I say that in the most fun sense of the word. I don't think I'm ever going to have casual sex, casually date, or casually do anything in my life. I feel a pang of "Aw, fuck", but underneath that is the feeling of knowing yourself, which feels like having taken a deep breath. N----- told me this a month and a bit ago: "We are not people who casually date." She's right. Fuck. I almost hate to say it, but I'm a cult boyfriend. I will probably die a man who will only have had lovers, and not the kind I forget. It's happening again, and maybe this time, completely for real.
My hair remains greasy, and my clothes are all bunched together and messy. My winter jacket feels especially puffy this afternoon. I sit within a haze of being amused. The world shoots with possibility: little bolts of lightning that foretell possible futures. I'm slouching on it.
The memory of making out with her for the astounding 6 or 7 hours lingers. I mean it. *Lingers*. I'm amazed these are the kinds of memories I have now.
