dreamland

five

The day was deceiving just like your eyes and mouth and hands and hips had been for too long. It had started off warm and all sunshine.

The heat was bearable unlike other things.

I wasn't supposed to see you on that day. It was Thursday after all, the day you worked ‪from morning‬ till dark. Still you were on my mind, tucked and folded in the back like a little reminder you keep tight in your grip.
I was staying home, cleaning out my closet and changing the sheets on my bed—I wasn't expecting for everything else to change. I had only wanted to bring out my white sheets and remove the lavender ones.

My friend had been asking about you after that day you walked away and left me standing there. As I tried to answer her questions I found that I knew close to nothing about you. It didn't matter that you hated pickles and that you had a birthmark that looked like a horseshoe on the inside of your arm.
I didn't know what the inside of your house looked like and who else was your friend and what you parents even looked like.
All that I knew and that I felt so fortunate of knowing was close to being absolutely meaningless.

None of that mattered.

I didn't even know the boy I had fallen in love with. That was why, when she spoke about you, the real you, I was so confused. She told me that she knew you, she had seen you. I asked her from where, I wanted to know. And she told me she'd seen you at parties and at the movies and at the gas station. In all of those times she had, one thing had remained constant: the girl with black hair and freckles on her arms and cheeks. She had been the one you held hands with as you searched the aisles for your favorite candy. She was the one that sat on your lap as you drank your beer at yet another party thrown for no reason. She was the one that you bought licorice and a bottle of Pepsi for before entering the movie. I chose to deny it, laughing and shaking my head, nope she had you confused. But she insisted, describing your car to me and your brown hair. Yet I still said no and hung up.

She was delirious, many boys drove cars like yours and had hair the color of yours. She had never been all that much of a close friend to me anyway, simply someone I waved to, so I couldn't rely too heavily on her words. It could have been just about any other person. I pretended the phone call hadn't even occurred as I wiped my windows and pulled out a yellow dress and washed out jeans I would never wear again. I hummed and then took a shower, washing my arms and thighs and neck. All those spots that you liked of my body most. You would come by after work and kiss my neck, murmuring how good I smelled as we leaned on your car. You would kiss my thighs as we lied there in our underwear listening to the cicadas and each other's heartbeats. You would tell me to wrap my arms around you before you slept for a couple hours on my bed, before I awoke you and told you, you had to go home, it was late.
All these moments where I felt so close to you but so helpless as well.

I walked out the shower and tried to find my reflection in the mirror but the steam made me look like a faceless body. I rubbed my hand down the mirror and saw my face, my wet hair sticking to my neck. As I looked myself in the mirror something clicked, like the lock on that gate that had closed that first night, had just been unlocked. I knew that I had to know.
I knew where your best friend lived. I'd spent many afternoons laying on his couch, watching tv on his plasma as you made macaroni and cheese in the kitchen. I should have figured it during all those mindless afternoons, that something, something just wasn't right.
You would both stand in the kitchen whispering harshly as I continued to sip some strange delicious beverage you'd made.
I would catch him, your best friend, staring at me from the other side of the living room and then blinking, before looking out the window. And even a couple times, approach me while it was just the two of us but then moving back when you returned. I waved all these things away because I had become one of those stupid girls, so blinded by a guy who wasn't even all that spectacular. You weren't all that spectacular. No one ever is. We all have our secrets, our faults, our mistakes.