Run-On

Chapter 2, The One With Her

I have to be careful coming here, sitting on this park bench, my face pressed up into her amber hair, smelling the rose scented conditioner she must use. I'm afraid to forget this scent. She's listening to some indie something, I think she said they broke up a few years ago and no one remembers them. I can hear it in her earbuds, slung lazily over her shoulders like my arm. She is beautiful and it dawns on me that I think I might love her. She is perfect. She was mine.

"You know," I start, licking my lips as she places her head in a comfortable position. Her eyes are as big as a doe's and her essence is peaceful. "I'm really happy I get to be him." I finish. The words sound muddy and thick coming out of my mouth. She furrows an eyebrow at me, and I read that as she didn't understand. "Not all guys in the world get to have their favorite life form on the planet on a park bench next to them as often as I do," I grin. It's true. By the way she smiles, I know I've said the right thing. She pats my knee as she stands up, holding her books in one arm as she tucks her arm around my waist. I shiver a little. I hope she doesn't notice. If she does, she doesn't say anything. I am in awe.

She drops her books in the front seat of my car as I hold the door for her. I have never seen anyone shut a car door as gently as she does. I'm supposed to drive her home; I guess. We drive for hours. I tell her I haven't been so happy in my life, she smiles and tells me the same. I am not lying, but I have no idea if she is. I'd rather not know, I'd like to live with the satisfaction of knowing that I make her heart swell so much she thinks she might burst; because that's how she makes me feel and it's the best place I've ever been. By the time we get to her front door, she's smiling like she can't contain it and the warm autumn sunset is wrapping the horizon in vibrant, inspiring color and she is holding her waist. Her smile is the sunshine. I know her best friend is waiting behind the door as we get there, watching from the peephole. Girls' best friends are more protective than parents sometimes. But I don't care. I am inspired by the way she tucks her hair behind her ear as we get to the door, biting her lip as she turns to face me. I don't even give her warning. I take her face into my hands and I kiss her roughly. I know she doesn't mind, even though she is taken aback for a second. I am not a gentle force and if she doesn't know that by now, she doesn't know anything about me. She tastes like honey and coffee and sugar and everything wonderful in this world. She is a mystery and a wonder and I am completely enamored with her. It's only been 6 months. She smiles for a second as she pulls away and I feel electric. She asks me where I'm sleeping tonight. It's a courtesy. We both know the answer.

The next morning, I am tracing the tattoo on her spine. There is one connecting her shoulder blades that reads 'ciò che sale sempre scende' in Roman font. She is Italian, so I assume that's Italian for something deep that means something to her family. She is selfless like that. There is a tattoo of a bumblebee, as well as a lily. My fingers are gently tracing it, barely touching the black outlines inked into her back. I wonder where it came from. She never told me she had a tattoo, much less multiple. But I forgive her for that; I never asked, and it just made her all that much more exciting. It has been a long time, certainly, since I've been excited by another human being's existence. But, just like in almost every other aspect, she is different than the rest.

I am watching her sleep. It is almost too much for me to handle. Something is so bound to go wrong; I don't belong here. I am not enough to be here. But for some reason, I am, and so I'm going to thoroughly wear out every moment until they're as thin as a dollar bill folded back and forth 78,000 times. I brush my fingertips on her porcelain skin and her eyes begin to wake. She's warm but the tip of her nose is cold. She grins at me and I smile back. Too good to be true.

I play the rest of it like a normal morning. I'm drinking coffee at her house. It's her coffee. Her best friend is there, after all, her best friend is her roommate. She probably got no sleep last night, judging by the way she's glaring at me through glassy eyes and morning haze. "She's just not a morning person," is the excuse I get, but I don't believe it for one second. She doesn't trust me with her best friend. I'm more amused than offended; I hope someday I'll be able to win the ability to hold her best friend's hand without getting a glare like this. Someday I'll win them all over.

It's funny how quickly I jump to 'someday.' I can feel my future growing in the warm soul of this beautiful human. Someday will be soon, someday may be far, but someday is coming because neither of us are ready to let go. We are like the indelible essence; we are unbreakable. We face the wind, asking for it, daring the world to try and pull us apart. We could use some more sound judgment, but we all know the world's shot to hell and if we can do it, we should. Someday is a strong word to me, and yet with her, I can throw it to the breeze that dare knock us over.

I leave at an appropriate time, when her best friend is dressed in work clothes and is still glaring at me, even fierier now because the morning haze has lifted. I don't want to make her hustle me out, so I leave on my own accord. She is not sad to see me leave, because she knows I'm coming back. It doesn't take me long to realize that. I always know I can find where I belong in the people around me.

I excuse myself to head off to work, and while she gives me a strange look, her friend is probably just thankful that I have a job. Because only my lady knows that I don't really. Not yet anyway. I am a writer. My dad used to say that if you love your job, you never work a day in your life. Which is true. But another standard for having a job is actually having someone pay you to do your work, and I failed that standard a while ago. But someday, it will work. The American dream, after all, do what you love and love what you do. For now, I'll just pretend like I have a clue until I get there. I arrive at a coffeehouse in a busier part of town and after greeting all the people (they've prepared me my regular. It's strange being able to walk into a shop and have them already prepared for what you wanted to order in the first place. I am accepted here, if nowhere else) I sit down and begin pouring myself into the words on my screen.

I glance over my ideas, my scrambled thoughts that I somehow slapped into a short sentence to summarize for a day when I had more time than today; but she has inspired me, and so I close my laptop and pull out a notebook. There is nothing quite like notebooks in this world. They are a blank canvas just waiting, whispering, urging me to take my pen and mark them up, tear through sheet after clean sheet, destroying them with my mangled words and control. This one is pretty new; there's not much in it. Yet. I flip open the cover, pressing with my thumb on the top of it until I hear its click- its musical click- and start flooding the lines with my emotions that I have done everything in my ability to somehow capture in our simple language. I get more and more excited about it as I continue, and this is the kind of rush I wish everybody could feel at least once in their life. I'm putting my secrets in parentheses, slashing poetry into life, my pen scratching against the paper, leaving trails of beautiful imagery behind for me. The words belong to me. I am in control of them. This is so much better than any drug they live up in the movies, this is so much better than any everyday joy. This is my battlefield, and my pen is the majestic sword that will win the war.

It is moments like this that I forget that I am in a cafe, in a small town that will not remember my name, for now or for ever, and at 9pm tonight I will call my mom, asking her to help me out with the rent, just one more time, I swear, and then it's all over again.

I look up for the first time from my paper, not realizing how bright the whiteness of the fresh pages is until glancing up bruises my eyes. I blink it off for a second, trying to shake my mind from the sentences it keeps forming. I am done with my workday, and so are the people in the cafe, considering the nasty looks the custodian keeps giving me. I gather my things and step outside. If only I could support myself on doing this. Then everything would be perfect.

I can see it now, as my mind starts drifting on the way to my apartment. I can see a woman with silver hair pinned tightly against her head on the phone with me, telling me she's locked me in on a 2500 copy deal, first run, and that she'd like me to move out to Los Angeles or New York or Sydney or wherever their headquarters is, and I can see me taking her with me, her brown eyes glowing in the sunlight as we drive down the highway, our lives in the trunk of my car. I see a nice band on her ring finger, something I'm finally able to afford, and I see a two story house where we are eating three meals a day and paying the mortgage with a little to spare. This is a nice place in my head. It takes up way too much real estate. I am okay with that.