Stealing Pulse

Chapter 17

There is a man, and he is sitting there at the café, sandwich on thick white bread and straggling beansprouts; and I hate the look in his eye.

He is by himself so he's thinking and his hat is tilted over his face so he's in shadow and he won't look up from his sandwich so I am actively watching him.

I know he is sad. I know he is waiting for a girl to show up, or maybe he's just thinking of one, maybe he's just wishing she were here because when she's not, he's alone.

Maybe he's never seen her, but his heart knows she's out there and his soul can't sleep until he's found her.

Maybe he thinks he knows her, and maybe she's an ocean away. Maybe he thinks the longer he stares at the dangling beansprouts, the sooner she can be by his side. And because maybe he knows her, he won't look for anyone else and that hat tipped low over his brow keeps it so his eyes are really only for her.

I really, really hope that she will come find him. But then again, I was just passing the time—making up stories in my head.  He caught my eye, because I was staring too long probably. I hope that didn’t make him as uncomfortable as it made me; because when he looked up from his beansprouts, the story that I made for him was shattered. He told me with his quick glance that he didn’t want to play a role in my novel for him. Maybe he really isn’t lonely at all.

I wonder if anyone wonders about me like that.  Like people I don’t know, who happen to be bored enough to zone out into a stare.  I wonder if they make up stories about me in their heads. I wonder if they know that I hate having sad showers.

The hot water seeping from the faucet becomes tears, spilling so much misery onto aching shoulders. It is so, so heavy and just sore.

Like the raw-red skin breathed over by fire because you are never warm and the wool sweater round your neck doesn't remember how to hold you; like a day-old shoe bite lounging around your heels when you insist on wearing those pumps another day, even if your feet bleed; the first time in your childhood your mother isn't here to tuck you in.

Sore like hearing only your echo when you scream—a name, or some animalistic, frightened sound; like the first night alone in your apartment, no body to press against yours, to calm you down, to keep you quiet. Just hours alone in the fragile bed, crying to your soul's content.