Timing

Hello Readers! This is a new sort of short story for me, I’m really excited about it so please; comment below! This is much more in a regular narrative type than the usual slice of mystery that my shorts have been. As such it’s a little longer for a blog but I really want to share it. I feel like it’s a progression in a good direction for me.

 

I’m writing this from outside your hotel window. That’s a little creepy, I know, but I had to get it down now, while I’m feeling it. Am I ever feeling it now. All of it. I didn’t come here to recriminate with you. I came to reunite- scratch that, to unite with you. Reunite implies we’ve had some fashion of union in the past. Untrue, of course. I am unsure if I’m glad of this now or no. It is strange to think of me, sitting on a fountain under the stars typing away. A policeman came along a while ago, at least I think it was a policeman. I think he asked if I was ok. I pretended to be a tourist overwhelmed with the beauty of the fountain. It’s Europe, there’s crazy Americans all over the place here, it’s wet with them, drenched in their effusions. I didn’t come here to make fun of the tourists. I came because I missed you. You left without saying goodbye, after all the things we’ve said to each other these long months you’d think goodbye-

I understand, though, I really do. As soon as I saw you walking through the doors here I understood. I waited outside the hotel, it was relatively easy to glean the information from the staff at the university. Someone of your caliber doesn’t stay on campus.

I waited under the sun, knowing what time your plane was due in. I was going to meet with you in Prague but I missed the connection from Tokyo, so I came straight here. Again, stalker territory I know, you never gave me your itinerary (not even a goodbye) but it was easy to find on your website. Your adoring secretary keeps it up, damn how many women are there following your emanations, like we feed on the miasma of you?

Don’t forget it was you who found me. I was quite happy my myself, singing to myself in the gym like a lark on a string. You wound me up and let me loose and didn’t even give me a goodbye. I know it’s my fault. I wasn’t like the other girls you were used to, the adoring kids following your footsteps. I wasn’t like her, the strong one who’d been your wife, mothered your child, left you when you became too much of a burden. You’re heavy, I’ve always known that. I never intended to get involved, you’re not my type. One of those radical thinkers, you wear your beard unironically, write from the heart in your books. You came to the gym because your doctor told you it would lift your mood. Why did you decide to come that day? It was one of your black days, you wouldn’t speak to anyone. My room was the least full, I kept it that way by singing at the top of my lungs the entire time I was running. It effectively blocked out everyone. But you. Knowing you now, knowing your darker moods, I doubt I even registered for you. For me, after the initial alarum of being no longer alone, I learned to tolerate your quiet presence.

How long were we that way? How long did we simply inhabit the space together, day after day? You were erratic, weeks would go by with no sign of you, then days you would run concurrently. It is difficult to trace back the beginning, for it happened without mark to measure. When did first our eyes meet with acknowledgement? When did first we exchange words? I did not mark it, those first phrases must have been innocuous. Nice day. Watch the traffic on the hill. I don’t recall the first time you began to sing along with me. I remember the first time you complimented me on my choice of music. I was sure you must have been mocking me, but your eyes were genuine. It was the first time I noticed your eyes. Deep brown. Honest. A little bit afraid, always.

I am unsure as to how we first devolved from casual exchanges of pleasantries to conversations proper. When was the first day you found out I had no car, and offered me a lift home? I refused, you know, because I wasn’t sure of your intentions. I lived a short jog away, I told you, the walk was part of my routine, my warm down. I jogged away slowly because I’d caught you watching my ass once already. I was pleased with the attention. There is a certain crazy fullness of life in your spirit, more than that you’re just a handsome fellow. But you know this. You admitted as much to me once. We would stand and chat until the minutes dragging on caught our attention, rendered the time passed awkward.

When was the first time that I realised my enjoyment from these encounters? When did I first realise that your scruffy face made my day brighter? Sometimes these moments are impossible to capture, to remember. I believe I caught yours though. The moment you first saw me properly.

Our singing had become legendary, between us at least. You wanted to capture it. You wanted to boast to your friends of the fun you were having. You wanted a reminder for yourself. Perhaps all of these things. You set up your phone to film us, one of our favourite songs. It was the first time you’d seen my hair loose. Usually a wild mane, tangles of entwined tawny to dirt-brown mess, kept in check when I jogged by various witchcraft and hairbands. If I was being committed to film, I argued, I would have my hair out. I joked that it was my one true beauty. When you took this as self-deprecation, I derided your lack of literary knowledge. You shrugged it off; you didn’t need to have read Little Women to write your particular brand of popular, manly novel. It was only after I watched the video back that I caught the moment. The look. Your gusto had made me laugh, you often made me laugh with your full-bodied appreciation for revelry. My smiles I turned to the camera; a kodak baby knows where her light is best. I drew your attention, your eyes wandered to me, caught the reflected glow of my amusement, lit for a moment. Watching it back now I feel the thrill of the moment as though I’d caught your eyes in real time. You turn to look at me, really look at me, and your face is the study of a man falling in love. Eyes damp, focussed, lips drawing forwards subconsciously, tilting towards me. I watch it over to catch that first moment. It went unspoken at the time, and still has.

There never has been any acknowledgement between us of any supremacy, even our level of friendship has gone unexpressed. We never met anywhere but that gym, I never allowed you to drive me home, you never asked me out for a coffee. Our conversations could stretch for hours, we spoke about your books, your ex-wife, my late husband, my home town, your daughter, my work, hopes and dreams, your depression and struggles for sobriety. Always in the car park after running. It was like our post-coital confessional. At first I’d thought it would lead somewhere, but we never met outside of that place, our friendship never had the chance to progress to anything more than this playful flirtation.

Perhaps that is why I’m sitting outside your hotel room on an increasingly quiet night. I almost fancy I can hear you above me, your gravelly tones. I love your voice, though I know it is that way due to your penchant for cigarettes, which I loathe. I told you once I never could be attracted to a man who smoked. You told me you quit regularly, around the beginning of each month. Not the combined attractions of life and daughter could make you stop, I was sure I could not. One of many reasons I held my distance from you, I am sure you must have felt it. I could never have taken you home to my mother, not the smoking but the tattoos, the beard, the saggy pants and gutter mouth. Not all my assurances that you were an established author and college professor would have made her give you the acceptance she gave to my late husband. You were nothing like him. Perhaps that was one of your attractions.

How long would we have continued in this vein if someone hadn’t happened to interrupt our comfort?

It is egotistical of me to have seen you today with your wife and suppose I have had anything to do with your reunion. I must dash the thought from my mind. It implies I meant anything to you. I know now I must not have, not really. Perhaps I was simply a signpost, someone who pointed you back in the direction you should be taking. I was so earth-shatteringly incongruous to your sensibilities that you leapt back into the arms of a woman who I know to have hurt you so badly you still grew bleary-eyed when you spoke of her.

Or I was simply nothing to you.

I can’t like either option.

It is very quiet now. People have stopped walking past, even the tourists gawking at the sky. I am hidden from the view of the man at the door, else he would surely have shooed me away by now. It’s past midnight here. Your lights have just gone out. Like me, you’re a night owl. Is your wife?

Typically, he hadn’t told me he was coming. There we were, just like every other day, singing away as we jogged. Or was it just me singing? Is it my memory extrapolating, or were you already quiet that morning? Do I remember it that way because I heard his voice so clearly?

It was a voice that resonated down in my core fibres. Sometimes it felt as though they’d been stringed to its very sympathetic resonance when I’d been formed. “Nevermind, I can hear her from here.” I broke off my singing to listen. Did you ask what had given me pause? Why can’t I remember a thing you did that day? Little wonder you knew immediately how special he is to me. He spoke again, closer. By the time I got to the door he was in the corridor outside. You must have seen my ecstatic greeting through the picture windows. I leapt into his arms like a child. He always pretended my enthusiasm embarrassed him, downplayed the pleasure it brought him. He lifted me off my feet and laughed at my joy. It had been months since I’d seen him, I couldn’t hide the thrill. He told me to calm down, I’d scare his daughter. He knew this would set me to shrieking all the more. I remember how good it felt to have her run to me down that corridor of windows, to lift her into my arms and feel her little hands about my neck. I was so involved in chatting with my goddaughter that I don’t believe I even stopped to see the questions in your eyes, let alone answer them.

My preoccupation was so complete that I didn’t visit the gym for the rest of the week. I thought of you, of course. Most often in the dark, before bed, when my visitors were sleeping in the next room. I would think of you, and wonder what you made of my absence. I thought to myself that you would not notice.

By week’s end I had put it off too long, I was itching to run. It was morning, my usual hour, I had to drag myself from bed. She begged me to sit and watch cartoons with her. I would have stayed, but he overrode her, ordered me to go. He liked that I was being healthy. He’d tried for years to involve me in his frequent treks across the countryside, which I sarcastically call his one vice. I’d always been more of an indoor scientist, when we were undergrads together he’d practically had to carry me about on our field trips. He was a vegan, also for health reasons. He would try to teach me how to cook healthy meals, but I was a lame duck in the kitchen. The second morning he’d been at my house he’d bought me a new set of pots and pans. They’d only left the box because he’d cooked us dinner that night.

The pleasure in your eyes when you found yourself not alone in the room was tempered by your usual cynical ill-humour. I was too effusive about my visiting almost-family to be denied. Your smile soon shone through when I described the joy of taking my goddaughter for a simple ice-cream run, of tying her shoes and carrying her home when she tired. I explained how I would dress to come to the gym every morning and she would stall me with her big blue eyes and cartoons and I was helpless in the face of it. “I only got away this morning because her daddy put his foot down and ordered me out of the house.” I smiled to think of it. I always enjoyed allowing him to feel authoritative by obeying his commands. My husband had used to tease that I’d enjoyed having a man who’d tell me what to do, that he should try it likewise. Perhaps if I’d kept in mind my refutation of this, I wouldn’t be sitting cold on a fountain, writing love-sick histories in the dark. As I told my husband then, our playful back-and-forth raillery made our marriages one of the healthiest I’d known.

You asked, in your most casual tone, about the relationship I had with the girl’s father. The words I said were simple, truthful; very dear friends. Your silence following might have told me the wealth of emotional baggage those words carried. How could I describe it for you in a meaningful fashion while dressed in lycra, running on a treadmill and serenaded by meaningless pop poetry? How does one explain the depth of a relationship that seemed to have run many lifetimes, a friendship continuous through life’s changes? I can’t even try.

But this is my confessional, from your devotee. Given he all but took me from you, I still can’t find adequate expression of our friendship. Know he’s been there for me through my darkest of times, always stalwart, always warm, always ready with his calm, soothing voice to let me know my broken heart would mend, time would abate my anger and frustration, talk me down from my ledge. He was engaged when first I met him. Though I had no fondness for that girl, I don’t believe I had anything to do with that relationship’s breakdown. By time it had happened he’d introduced me to my beloved husband. He’d been possibly the second biggest fan of my husband, after his mother. I helped this man through his first great loss; that of his father. I saw the dawning and progression, and later disintegration, of his relationship with his beautiful wife. I am goddaughter to his only child, his darling daughter. It is her sweet face that I credit with pulling me through my darkest times since. I vent my frustrations on him, tease him mercilessly (though he never will respond, out of some gentlemanly instinct), overstay my visits to his house and try his patience. He is the tall, dark, handsome man in my life who I’ve always adored. The succession of tall, beautiful, blond women by his side very early convinced me that I would never hold that honoured position, and an early crush on him has settled into a lasting friendship. It has lasted even these months apart, on opposite ends of a continent, as it has lasted through similar separations in the past. I have some hope it will last even through this current cataclysm.

You were making fun of my fluffy pink jacket as we left the gym. I responded that it was my pimp look, playfully stealing your glasses. A high voice on the wind interrupted us, my goddaughter running down the street towards us. I caught her up, spinning her around. Your meeting with him was like the meeting of a couple of alpha dogs. I instinctively downplayed the situation, but as we left I felt your eyes following us. It gnawed at me that night, had your eyes flickered as I’d introduced you not by name, but as simply “My running buddy”? My old friend, practically perfect in every way, has an unfortunate habit of looking at men like you as though you’re an uninteresting specimen in his bug collection. I saw you size up his natural broadness, you seemed to shrink inside your clothes. You pulled your jacket down your arms, trying to cover your sleeves. You even self-consciously ran a hand through your shaggy hair. He never left the house in any state less than perfectly clean-shaven and coifed. It was a gentlemanly ideal he’d shared with my late husband. I longed to defend you, even as we left I considered explaining that your body art belied your intelligence, your sensitivity. I think part of me rebelled at the idea of having to explain this. A larger part knew that if I did he would look askance at the emotion that led me to your defence.

I realised as I got home that I still had your glasses. I chose not to mention it. I would return them after he left. I have not had the chance to since.

Two nights later he announced that it was the last night of their vacation and asked me to marry him. At first I thought he was joking. I belittled the idea of my becoming his second Mrs, told him I was neither tall nor blond enough. His gravity soon assured me he was serious. He couldn’t have surprised he more if he’d run a thousand volts through me, sneakily. I wanted to shout and scream at him for explanation, but his daughter was sleeping in the next room. It was the thought of her that drew his proposal sharply into focus. He knew me too well. He knew which strings to tune. He explained, characteristically calmly, that he couldn’t imagine a better mother for his daughter. He related our long friendship, how we’d never been single together before. His divorce had just been finalised, my mourning period was over. He spoke about it as an inevitability. We were meant to be together, he told me, the two of us drawn together only closer by our years-long friendship, the tides we’d weathered together. Always the fighter with everyone else, I never could debate with him. I had no words to disagree. As always, he took my quiet acceptance for assent. He kissed me then. Perhaps I was still too much in shock from his announcement of our impending nuptials, but I didn’t respond as he’d hoped. When he asked me to say something, all I could make out was, “thanks.” He laughed gently at me, told me I needed time to think it over, and sent me to bed. I am grateful that he gave me that time. If he’d asked me the same question on the tarmac as he was leaving I would have gone with him. I spent most of that night staring at the ceiling, wondering why I hadn’t given him a definitive yes immediately.

At first light I was up. I am almost ashamed to admit that I snuck out of my apartment, hearing him speaking to his daughter in their room. Assuredly you observed the whirlwind state of my mind that morning.

I didn’t notice your absence until it was corrected. I had already jogged for an hour or so, almost exhausting myself. You seemed to be surprised to see me. Your tone, to me, sounded acerbic when you asked if my friend had left yet. All this may be attributed to my hypersensitive state. Weary legs notwithstanding I couldn’t face your questions, I turned my machine back to run and tuned you out. It was a mistake. My legs weren’t up to it. My ankle crumpled under me, I only just managed to grab the handrails and save myself from further embarrassment. As I limped to the chairs you followed me, unable to hold back your concern. Your hands on me, your face near mine, only served to confuse me further. You’d already divined that I’d been here for hours, asked me exasperatedly why I would sprint when already tired, and out of practice. My inability to answer pointed you to my unsteady mental state, you began asking questions, firing them at me quicker than I could think. What had upset me, who, was it him? When my face gave assent you jumped to conclusions, demanded what he’d done, had he hurt me? Your ferociousness moved me. You took my face in your hands, demanded my answer, had he hurt me? I gave a quick negative, to your relief, but your passions had already been aroused. Your eyes, intent on mine, hands on my face, breath on my cheek, it was a moment too close for the both of us and we moved as one. When you kissed me, my insides thrilled with it. My body sang with it. My mind emptied and filled with joy. You kissed me like you needed my lips to survive. It was too much for my already worn out lungs. I had to break it off to breathe. Leaning forwards into you, our fingers entwining, I had a moment of clarity. That was what a kiss was supposed to feel like. All at once I remembered what was waiting at home for me. You moved to kiss me again, but I turned away, still struggling for breath.

I blame my own confusion for the conversation that followed. Perhaps my words lacked clarity. Or perhaps it would have made no difference to the outcome had you known precisely my feelings. “It’s him, isn’t it?” you asked, “That friend of yours.”

“He asked me to marry him.”

“Well.” You tried to rally, “I don’t see a ring on your finger.”

“He hasn’t gotten one yet.” It came out automatically, he’d told it to me thus the night before. It was not what I should have said. I should have said, “I haven’t said yes.” I should have told you I hadn’t said yes. You moved back, I saw your eyes cloud over. You apologised, and I wasn’t sure what for. “It’s alright.” I said. I was thinking dolefully of the conversation I was yet to have, the arguments I would need to muster, the time I would finally need to disagree with him, “Some people are only ever meant to be friends.” I said. I meant him! Dear god I meant him, not you! I see it so clearly now, what I should have said in that moment, how the words should have flowed, promoting understanding. Instead you winced, moved away, murmured that you understood. I believe I even thanked you for helping me make my decision, am I wrong to believe that was painful for you? Did you only ever kiss me just because I was there? Was I of any influence in your decision to resume your relationship with your wife? I want to say ex-wife, but I saw you as you left your car hours ago, many hours ago now it seems. You were holding hands, you kissed her as she handed your bags out of the car. It was the look on your daughter’s face as she noticed this, no more than 6 or 7 but old enough to know the world around her, that stayed my mouth. I would have called to you, gone to you, but her face… nothing I could have said would have been worth dampening her delight. I folded back to skulk in the shadows. It didn’t matter. You even looked my way once, but didn’t mark me.

It took me some weeks to realise my mistake. I went straight home from the gym, assuring you as I went that you and I would talk soon. I should have asked you to wait for me right outside the door, should have told you where my heart lay, should have explained my mission better. I had to go tell my best friend I wouldn’t marry him. In the end that conversation was easy because he read the answer in my face. He didn’t have the heart to argue. I suspect his heart had never been in it in the first place. Though I tried to exact the promise from him that this wouldn’t alter our friendship his answer was indistinct. It may take some time. He may never forgive me. He asked if you were the root of my answer, I don’t think he believed my honest negative. He and I were never meant to be lovers. I had felt no thrill when he’d kissed me. When I took him to the airport he was quiet, short with his answers. When I promised his daughter I’d come visit soon he barely registered.

I took a day or two to recover from this. By the time I got back to the gym you were gone. I didn’t realise at first, thought it was simply a return to your old erratic exercise habits. It was a colder place without you. I hadn’t even the heart to sing without you. I found my hours empty without the time I used to spend opening my heart to you. I found myself endlessly reliving our last conversation. I began to realise that there may have been misunderstanding, and your continued absence confirmed this. Three weeks passed, yet no sign of you. That’s when the stalking began. That was a joke by the way, though it doesn’t seem that way, written as it is by a girl sitting outside a hotel in a foreign country in the small hours of the morning. Wondering if the man she loves is inside sleeping with his wife.

I found out quickly where you were, how long you planned to be away. I was hurt at first that you hadn’t said goodbye. Reason soon explained why. If there was any miscommunication on that front I quickly realised it should be rectified hastily. I caught my courage by both hands and flew out here to meet you. To tell you that I didn’t marry my dearest friend because when I kissed you I saw stars.

I was too late.

Or I was too unimportant.

Either possibility breaks my heart.