Meet Me In The Hallway

Walkabout

As Harry sobbed, I pulled him across my lap. I had heard his sadness and regret on his 10 -song memory trip. I knew we were all over it. I felt like I had a lot of answers to his questions. Not a one of them was good enough though.

"I'm sorry, Harry, I'm sorry, baby!" We were both saying it and he sat up and held my face.

"Im sorry. I'm sorry. If you ever thought I didn't love you, didn't think of you everyday.," he said."Didn't want you every bit as much as you wanted me. That you were less important than me."

I clutched his back, knowing touching him was a bad idea. "I'm sorry I ran. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you. You were my best friend, I should have just talked to you!"

He kissed me then. I think he was just caught up in the feeling of the moment, like I had been earlier. I let him, because we needed a real goodbye, a seal upon our lives and lips. Because I wanted to memorize him one last time, commit him to the mixtape in my head labeled 'Harry and Melly."

I pulled away after a few sips and stood, he needed to leave, before that wasn't possible. He tasted like sunshine and beaches and sausage rolls, and my mom before she got sick, like the home you can't go back to.

Harry let me pull him up and lead him to the door. I was surprised he didn't fight me about making him leave, that he didn't think we had more to say. Maybe he was sure this wasn't the last time. But he was leaving my island, a smaller one this time, and I knew better that it had to be.

I crossed my arms tightly at the door and said goodbye in the same tone. Collapsing back into myself, bringing her back home, the girl he set free.

"Can I at least call you sometime? I promise I'm much better about it now. Heartbreak is a good teacher," he said. The slice in his cheek appeared, his eyes shone through his drying tears and I thought that saltwater cured everything, except for love.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Harry."

His smile fell. "Alright, Alright Melly." He swallowed. "I...I love you, and for what's worth, I'm not mad at you anymore, ok? We're ok?"

I bit my lip and back my tears. "Mmhmm," was all I could get out with a nod. I couldn't cough up the three words he now seemed to say so effortlessly. Or the easy forgiveness, for him or me. I guided him to the threshold of my apartment and opened it onto the hallway. I couldn't even smile when he walked out into that place, our place. Though he was the one outside now, it felt backwards, like a mirror image.

I closed the door between us and sat down right there and listened to him walk away.

His footsteps echoed and I thought about how we don't ever really see our own faces, just reflections and pictures, but our lovers do. How they see us for who we really are. What face did Harry see tonight, when he had been looking at me? Did he see me as the 18-year old girl who he spent nights learning, of the 20-year old girl he knew in everyway, or the 23-year old woman who was a stranger?

I wasn't sure which one I saw either, what reflection would look back at me. I wasn't sure I'd recognize any of those people.

I was still there, on the floor, with a salty face when I heard Milo's footfalls and got myself up and to the bathroom. The girl in the mirror looked younger. So maybe today I was her, my 18-year old self. I'd cried off my makeup and I was in comfy clothes and my hair was up in the messy bun I had always worn at night three or four years ago. I'm surprised she wasn't screaming at me, for letting Harry walk into that corridor and away, onto another country.

It was time to put away childish things.

Milo loved my hair unbound, the waves down my back drew him out like he was a surfer at dawn. Most nights I wore it like that, now.