Domesticating Green

A Simple Black Hat

It was a simple black cotton cap. Free of logos, cutting-edge fashion or graphic designs. It was just a hat. But it used to be his hat. He had laughed at her surprise when she jestingly put the cap on it actually fit over the onslaught of determined curls of varying size and coil. She couldn't remember the last time a hat actually fit on her head without first beating her hair into a submissive braid or low ponytails. But this one fit. Just like he did.

They fit together perfectly; the leg she always pulled up and to her chest curled around his hips in joy (it finally found the warmth it sought), her ass cheek was the perfect width for his large, heavy hands. When both were crammed into her little full-sized bed there were no limbs at war with what goes where. Her hair never seemed to get into his face when she'd roll over at night, flinging her hand haphazardly onto the other side. If he snored, something he claimed, she never heard it. His body was always cool to the touch and hers consistently ran just a little warmer than most. She honestly couldn't remember a sleep so peaceful that was entirely forced.

It took the pair ages to actually sleep. They'd climb into bed early, around eight or so (to have enough time to binge watch a show until their eyes began to droop around a reasonable time) and not fall asleep until three a.m. Long after they'd close her computer, distribute the comfiest pillows (he got the too soft one that always put a crink in her neck, but she had to give up Mr. Claude, a smiling, blue, cloud shaped pillow that was the perfect size to cuddle) and get up an hour later to make a pot of tea to help drift to sleep, they would still be wide awake. They were the issue, not the bed, their bodies or tea (although when she was putting it away one morning she discovered it was caffeinated which probably didn't help). They would keep each other up, divulging the darkest of secrets. Feelings both were much too afraid to utter to long time friends, they would continuously marvel in the beginning at how comfortable they were with each other. He understood the creeping surprise of anxiety, building on the peripherals where you couldn't really see it so you couldn't really do anything about until it attack; crippling her with its intense, illogical emotion that she just couldn't understand. Her introspective analysis of others, a mindfulness he never knew, illuminated the cause of even the longest of his bad habits. She never judged, he never shamed.

It was her introspective mind that foretold his departure. She knew he would leave her the minute they fell in together. She knew that no matter the amount of affection he had for her, no matter the comfort she offered or the care she possessed for him, he would leave her because he loved her.

Not her, she the protagonist who has endeared herself so far, but she who had him first. She who would always have a part of him. She was his first love, a love he couldn't seem to shake. For six years they've built their cycle (come together, get mad, not talk about it, lie, lie, lie, argue and "break up"), each time they went through it they'd make it just a little more complicated. His complication was her, her complication was L.A. She had lived on the peripheral of their turbulent relationship for too long to not know how it would all end. With nothing.

She didn't get a phone call. Not a text. Definitely not an in-person "I'm sorry." She knew he wouldn't, couldn't do that. She knew he was much too cowardly. The pictures infiltrated her Facebook timeline first. They attended a wedding together. All she thought when friend after caring friend sent her a screenshot of his updated profile picture (they were kissing, arms wrapped around each other with a comfort they could only ever muster in the dark privacy of her bedroom) was "So thats where he disappeared to..." the monster building at the sides of her eyes rearing its ugly head with impatience whenever a friend pressed, pointing out the intimacy between the two and his deceit. "Do you think he told her?" they worried, forever pressing her for an answer, "So did he tell her?" She did't know. She wondered if she would ever know, or if one morning she would wake on a bed of ashes. She was spirited (as some people called it).

Eventually her friends stopped asking, and she did too. Her stray leg curling over the expanse of her cold sheets every night was something she could never get re-accustomed to, but did she learn how to sleep alone again. Her room echoed at night with the acoustics of only her breathing, and Mr. Claude always slept in her arms but it was like it never happened, like they never happened. The only proof she had was his simple black cap. He forgot it that day and never bothered to get it back.