[Note: this story was the first I posted here at LIT – now more than a decade ago – and it was a catharsis of sorts, a working out of emotions overwhelming me at the time. I read it over a few months back and wanted to smooth out a few kinks, but it is otherwise little changed. This is a very short story about coming to terms, I think, with the unavoidable, and the unimaginable. It is, perhaps, your story as much or more so than it is my story, depending on where you are in life right now, but it was never a cry for sympathy, or even understanding. It was a remembrance, and it's just as welcome to me today as it was those many years ago. Life does go on, but the memories remain. A]
The Closest Thing to Heaven
'I remember the way you walked, the swing of your hips, the confidence I saw in your eyes. And your hair, too, so brown it was almost black – until the sun danced there, just so. Then, I don't know, the reds and golds of autumn lived in there for a moment, shielding your face from the sun as you walked along. I first saw you one October afternoon, as you walked from the old red brick classroom building – the one by the library – through the trees to your dorm. Remember that awful building, the one that looked like a fortress? You said it was to keep out the boys, then you laughed – and I was drawn into that sound for the first time in my life. That was our freshman year, when you were in your black phase? Remember? The old black cable knit sweater that hung down to your thighs, the dark olive corduroy skirt, the thick black tights? That sweater is still in our closet, but I guess you know that. Why'd you keep it all these years? To remind me?
Did you know, did I ever tell you I fell in love with you that first afternoon? I used to keep an eye out for you – for your hair, really – as we walked from class to class. I hoped I'd get to see you in the cafeteria, or the library, and it was a bad day when it didn't happen. I think it's called obsession these days, maybe puppy-love or a crush back then, but whatever it was, it felt real to me.
'I know I've told you this story a hundred times, but that day after psych class, you remember, when we'd gotten that silly assignment to interview other students about their reactions to pictures from magazine advertisements? I remember walking out of class behind you, and just then you turned and looked at me. I'd been looking at you all during class that day – well, daydreaming about you, really – for almost the entire hour, and then you asked if I wanted to work on the project together. I remember your words exactly, the rush of excitement that broke over me. Then how we'd talked in the library for hours about the assignment, what kind of pictures we'd use, how to write the best questions – to draw out the most revealing answers. It's funny, but those first hours felt like a 'coming together,' and not just for that assignment. I'd look down at your crossed legs as you were looking through magazines, at the fabric of those black tights, how it stretched over your knees, let your skin peek through. I felt so human when I looked at your skin, and I don't know how to say this, but I felt my humanity for the very first time. That never stopped, you know? You always kept me grounded to the best part of my humanity.
'I've wondered ever since if you felt me looking at you. I'd wanted to be close to you, because I knew you were the closest thing to heaven, even then.
'Do you remember our first date? The old white M-G convertible, the one with leaky top? I can still smell that pizza place in the village, where we talked so many nights away. I know you do to, but even so...sitting in that booth in the back where everyone had carved their initials on the walls? The hearts and the arrows, all of us shooting through time – shooting for the stars. I wonder if our hearts are there, still carved in the wood?
God, how we laughed and licked frozen rims on icy mugs of root beer, then that first time – when you leaned over and kissed me. I can still feel my face burning, turning as red as those tablecloths. I still feel the butterflies in my stomach – when we drove back to campus, how I tried to find a spot in the parking lot where no one would see us. When I turned out the lights and we just sat there for a minute, when we were not sure what to do but absolutely certain we knew what was going to happen, the anticipation – do you remember that, too? I thought my skin caught fire when you took my face in your hands, and as our faces were drawn together, the things that we said to one another as we talked about our hopes and dreams. Remember how steamed up the windows got, inside that poor little car? We must have kissed for hours, but it wasn't long enough. But there never was going to be enough time, was there? God, how I love your lips; there's never been one symphony that gets to the way I feel when your lips touch mine.
'I can still feel the knot in my stomach, the night I got that funky old room in the motel on the highway out of town. How you snuck in later, after I'd already gone in, and how we both felt so tense, so unsure of ourselves. Boy, we sure fooled the world, didn't we? Funny, but I think I felt like we were kids pretending to be grown-ups, don't you? Or maybe we were grownups – trying to be kids one last time?
But what I remember most was when you sat on the edge of the bed and took off your sweater, how my lower lip startled to tremble when I saw your skin in the dim light of that room. The bra you wore, oh my God, how I looked at you and wanted to hold you. I watched you as your little skirt dropped to the floor, how you flipped your shoes off and left your tights on because the room was a little cold. Isn't that what you said? I remember how silly-shy I felt as you asked me to come and lay next to you, how I wanted to crack a joke or say something to relieve the tension between us. But it wasn't tension, not really. It was like disbelief – that this was really happening. Life started to feel like a dream that night.
