Fragments

Three months since you’d last kissed me goodbye, pressing my mouth firmly, warmly, to yours. Your hand on the back of my head as if to ensure I wouldn’t disappear: before I watched you turn to walk away and felt, for the first time, my life without you in it.

One month since I’d knocked on your door, cold and bruised from an ice skating fall, and said only, “I couldn’t imagine spending my birthday without you.” After that, there were no words. Only fumbling and your warmth and the spicy-sweet scent of your skin.

Last night, in my cool blue room, the streetlight streaming across the white sheets, the lone candle flickering bedside; I undressed you. You came over, cold to the touch, but your eyes shined with warmth, love and pride. You had a surprise for me: The suit we’d picked out together, only a month before. I took as long as I could to unwrap you… the stiffness of your coat as it slid off your shoulders, the warmth of your chest radiating through the crisp white shirt. The cufflink surprise, “You shouldn’t have” at your wrists. I wanted to stay in those moments forever. I told myself to burn these images in my memory.

And then after, lying with you, the cool breeze from the frigid New York wind served as our only reminder of a world beyond our warm, safe haven. Casablanca plays on the TV as we remind each other of famous lines. Soon, I feel your breath slow on my chest, your nose burrows in my neck to soak up my scent. Grace Kelly comes back for her love, unable to bear the separation.

I know her pain.

***
Six months later, you’ll take a joy ride on a friends motorcycle one warm summer afternoon. You’ll speed down the street, impulsively revving the engine until you feel that familiar rush of adrenaline. The others are inside--there’s no one to watch you swerve to miss an animal, only to go barreling straight into a street sign.

Your body breaks with the impact: the right hip shatters, the right leg snaps furiously, the bones protrude through both your arms. You’re found in a ditch, your helmet 30 feet from the crash site. (You were never one for details).

I'm awoken by a phone call at 2 AM. You almost died, our friend said. You very nearly lost your leg. It will be months before you can get out of a wheelchair. You may never be the same. As I steel myself against the news, I realize, a part of me has always been waiting for this call.

I think of how we ended- with finality- just two months prior. And how much has changed since then. You feel so far away. I want to rush to your side: hold your head, reassure you, ‘save’ you from yet another disaster of your own design…but I won’t.
You don’t belong to me anymore.


I once called you broken. I now fear you forever will be.


*scorpio*