along the road

interlude

              You can tell when someone's searching for something.

           It's different for everyone, but it's simple to notice—the tinge of wonder suddenly imbued within the air, the shifting of eyes to and fro, beneath books and within pencil cases, between files and behind vases that are cradled until they reach another solid, steady, cradled until they reach another solid, steady place, one that will not orchestrate a shattered reunion to the ground, where it stood when we first moved in.

                 With him, it's no different.

               He begins subtly. Breezing throughout the apartment, humming softly as his eyes swiftly peer over the spines that greet us from the varnished bookcase—the one I brought with from the old place—to the kitchen counter, where a forgotten tea cup rests. There's a quiet sense of panic in the way his pitch drops an octave, more of a rumble now. Something secret tells me that it's always there—that intruding feeling that something's going to happen; that internal dialogue that insists that you must be the one to thrash change into its dusty, battered cage.

                        I remain silent against the couch, watching as he breezes towards the coffee table, where a cup that I have yet to neglect sits, tendrils of warm air snaking into the atmosphere. His hands brush against the stacks of magazines that rest below the glass, in that middle division that reminded me of those dry, lengthy visits to my aunt's.

                  "I wish she lived in the mountains," he commented, once we'd reached the inner city, a handful of turns away from the dirt road that led to my mother's childhood. "The greens up there look lovely."

                   "I've wished for that since the first time I came here," I mused. "My mom probably did, too."

           She had, indeed—before she built that house with her teeth and nails, she and her sister had lived at the end of another dirt road much higher up, with more trees, cows, and space to breathe.

            Even as a city boy, I longed for that life.

          A rustle coaxes me into the present. He's on his haunches, his azure eyes surging as his hands file through the treasure trove of tableside trinkets harboured within that middle division. His humming has ceased. The air, albeit buzzing, sounds robbed of something precious.

                   "What exactly are you looking for?" I whisper, slipping my bookmark onto page 197, ruminating over everything that touched my heart. Whatever was stolen is returned, and my ears settle comfortably into the harmony that reaches them.

          "Remember those papers?" he sighs, quietly, vaguely, much like he is when he stretches himself two places at once—our apartment and 5th Avenue; the theatre and our favourite coffee shop; my home and his. Before I can say anything, gently plead for a more elaborate, extravagant explanation, he stills, eyes rising to meet mine. My body quivers. After all these years, I still remain unable to accustom myself to this breath a boy—mural of a man—seeing through me; through my skin, into my soul, rattling its depths both seamlessly and recklessly. Sometimes, it almost feels like we're fifteen again, laughing in old blankets, shivering atop cold chairs, in a tent that smells like grass and dreams. "The script; the one I brought home after closing night of Into the Woods?"

                  The night rises in my memory, like a mother on a bright morning when sleep has been earned. He held a folder in one of his gloved hands, and my bare one in the other. We ventured home on foot, with a chilly autumn breeze drawing us closer, and a conversation asking us to whisper.

                          "Yes," I reply, nodding, the book shutting triumphantly as I rise, a former version of myself stepping through the mental makeup of our apartment, peering through and strolling through walls, holding no regard for what the human body is capable of in this reality. "It's on the desk—mine, beside the computer."

                 Darkness greets me once I attempt to find him, and I realize my eyes are shut. I rectify the subconscious event, his head of muddy blonde hair coming into focus, the eyes remaining a blur as he scampers to his feet, a smile carelessly thrown in my direction on his voyage to the office we'd forged with our own hands.

                         The apartment, despite standing smack-dab in the middle of New York City, with traffic soaring past the building and a university campus not too far away, holds a quiet air that I cannot make sense of.

                 You can tell when someone's found something, too—the way air shifts as a yes! gallops into the room with him marching steadily beside it, the lost object quaking in his hands, the fireworks ricocheting around his pupils, the feel of lips warm against mine.

                      My heart brushes against the door to his. And, without question, he pulls it open, and I rest on the other side of membranes so similar to mine. I sigh, contentedly, into him. A hand traces shapes into my cheek.

                Here, I fail to feel his panic. Here, he cannot see the slight tremor in my bones that arises when we part, and I stare up into infinity, and he gazes down into endless love.

                       In this moment, I wonder when he's going to leave. I am stunned to find that, once he's said you're incredible, thank you and I've brushed it off (all I can do is help), I do not correct this thought.

                   In the moments that follow afterwards, I watch him sit on the chair across from me, eyes peering through thick lenses, teeth nipping at skin and lower lips, I realize that I wouldn't know what to do if he tears our tether. I wouldn't know how to breathe. 

            I wonder whose fault that is, but—even after I've reopened my book, reacquainted myself with characters whose lives become the foreground of my memory—I find that there is no one to blame.

☀

One more. One more.

Also, this one is my favourite flash forward. It makes me long for a relationship like this (not with him, thank you Jesus).

Thank you for reading. I love you.

—jay.