Before bed and after an evening spent in mostly worthless reflection only half-interrupted by a trip to the gym and the resulting takeout meal, I made a promise to myself. I would never pressure Mikey. Whether out of fear or discretion, or some measure of both, he had arrested our quickly intensifying moment together. He'd done it with poise and certainty. His action revealed a striking ability that might have been otherwise difficult to distinguish: he knew how to look after himself. A further advance into intimacy would not have indicated to the contrary; it wouldn't have proven anything other than the actuality I had already come to know (his attraction to me). But he had chosen to stop, an employment of the same deft certitude he'd used to rock us into motion. He lacked the clarity I possessed regarding my desires and certainly my orientation, but his authority eclipsed my own--which, with regard to sexual advances, I would relinquish.
With this in mind, I did not sleep poorly and in fact felt revitalized during my walk between buses the next morning. I picked out his apartment building among the others as I passed his street. At this point our paths sometimes coincided, at which time one would follow the other while maintaining a suitable distance. I found it solacing to consider that this distance would no longer be necessary. Today, however, I saw no sign of him until I came to the bus stop.
He flashed a smile as I approached so I smiled back and arrived to stand next to him in front of the shelter. He wore a black peacoat I had never seen before. His thick hair, blacker still, had been shaped a little more deliberately than usual, and was swept up, far away from his eyes.
"Any important meetings today?" I asked.
"No, actually. Nothing scheduled, anyway."
"Well," I said, choosing my words carefully, "You look ready, if they show up."
"Thanks." He must have known what I referred to, because he then said, "My hair's getting way too long. I can usually get by putting some gel in it and tossing it around. Today it needed extra attention."
"It looks good," I said. "I mean, it always looks good."
He smiled. "Thank you."
I leaned back against the glass wall of the shelter and after about a minute, so did he. We watched cars and pedestrians pass by for a short time and then he turned toward me a little. Even though the roadway roared with life, he lowered his voice when he said, "I want to apologize for coming on to you last night. I shouldn't have done that."
"It didn't bother me," I told him.
"Well, it shouldn't have happened."
The bus arrived and the subject rested until we had boarded, offering me time to consider how to respond. I had not expected him to feel this way. I entered the bus before him, a fact for which I was soon grateful; I had taken it for granted that we would sit next to each other, and realized suddenly that this might not be what he wanted. I sat by the window, and was relieved when he did not ask, but simply came to rest at my side.
We did not say anything say anything immediately. I though about what he'd told me a little longer and asked, "It shouldn't have happened last night, you mean? Or it shouldn't have happened at all?"
He hesitated.
I could sense that he strained to find an answer and I stopped him. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you that."
"You're really putting me on the spot here, Chickadee." He laughed, but he also looked very nervous.
"Really," I said, "I don't need an answer. It's not a big deal."
His expression vacillated between confusion and a kind of unfiltered sadness. "I don't blame you for asking," he said.
I didn't say anything for a while. I perceived an overarching message of apology from Mikey, apology both unfounded and misplaced. I cleared my throat. "Could you try to trust me about one thing?"
He looked at me.
"You need to know that you didn't do anything wrong."
He stared at the back of the seat in front of him. "Okay," he said in an uncertain tone. "I'm glad to know that's how you feel." His phone rang and he excused himself before answering.
I could see the call was work-related and probably important. I sat back and looked up to the front of the bus, through the gaping windshield at the path ahead. Mikey's own desires, or more appropriately his cognition respective to them, differed from mine more than I could ever have anticipated. I marveled at the dissonance between his displays of clarion confidence and these fresh moments of uncertainly. Even now his voice rang in quiet tenacity as he negotiated an exchange of money and services to occur later in the day.
His phone call persisted until my stop, at which point he said, to whomever he was speaking with, "Hold on just a minute," and covered the bottom half of his phone with his palm.
To me he said, "I'm staying downtown late tonight, so I'll see you tomorrow. We can talk then."
I told him goodbye and left the bus. It didn't occurred to me until I was a block from the office that it was Friday, and I guessed he hadn't remembered, either. I resented the thought of a whole weekend spent vaguely suspended by an unfinished conversation. At least it had not been entirely unfinished; I had let him know he wasn't in the wrong, something I felt deeply and which, I reflected, overshadowed anything else I could have said.
I resolved to limit my thoughts about him in general, and if I did ponder over him much further, to use other people in my life as sounding boards. I was not an especially unsocial person, and in that moment, found myself shocked to realize that, other than Mikey and my work colleagues, I hadn't spoken to anyone in several days.
I was pleasantly surprised to find work that morning engaging in spite of lingering doubts about my approaching relocation. By some miracle, considering my penchant for frantic anticipation, I was able to put it out of mind. I had lunch at a pho place down on the street, accompanied by a work acquaintance whom I had become somewhat close with, and who had very recently received the same relegation.
"I just wish they had told us this could be a possibility from the beginning," she said.
"I know. It wouldn't have made any difference for me, though," I said. "I felt pretty lucky when they hired me."
"Me too. And I mean, obviously they expected us to be versatile. It's not really asking that much. The trade-off is in how fast people rise up through this company."
"So you're going?" I asked.
"Well, it's not like I have a choice." She paused and then said, "Aren't you?"
I told her I would probably go, that the reality of it just hadn't sunk in yet.
"I feel the same way," she said. "It's going to take a little time. I'm sure I'll feel a lot better about it when the time comes."
We said nothing for the next few minutes as we ate our soup.
Eventually I sat back and said, "The thing is, I just met someone who's made a really good impression on me, and it's not that it really matters--I mean, I hardly know the guy--but just thinking about Fern Hill and how small it is...what are my chances of meeting someone like that up there?"
"If you think about it," she said, tilting her head to one side, "small winter village...people trying to stay warm...opportunities may present themselves."
"Sounds like you've already thought about it," I said.
"I have," she assured me through a mouthful of noodles. She finished and said, "Wyatt, with a face like yours, what could you possibly have to worry about?"
"If you're saying that for the return compliment, I'm not giving it to you."
She laughed.
Conversation turned as it usually did to our work; we discussed sources of confusion and complained about our superiors. Back at the office I labored energetically and the afternoon hours passed at a tolerable pace. I began preparing to leave for the day, contemplating a long ride home and the uneventful Friday evening ahead.
Down in the lobby I texted one of my closest friends and asked if I could catch the train with her to Celadon. Marie, who also worked in the city and became free around the same time I did, lived by herself in a high-rise condo several miles east of downtown. After many late summer nights spent together in hostels around Europe, turning sleep away as we discussed life's beautiful and ugly truths, we lately bonded over a shared perception of life back at home as nebulously unsatisfying.
"I'm already on," she texted back. "Follow me! You'll only be one or two behind."
I walked underground and bought a twenty-four hour pass, unsure whether I would be staying overnight. The eastbound car arrived after a few minutes and I sat near the front.
Two stations later the train climbed above ground and I was met with a dignified view of the harbor to the north, where colossal container ships, some languishing at the docks and some drifting glacially, were the reigning species. I attempted to imagine the lowly human effort responsible for the creation and movement of such monumental beasts, but to the discredit of shipbuilders and crew the world over, I couldn't do it; in my mind, epicenter of the childish and absurd, they had birthed themselves into existence through their own endeavors and they did not bow to human influence.
Rain had begun pouring and battered the front window of the train car. One long wiper swept silently across the expanse of glass. Someone now sat in the seat next to me, their elbow pressed slightly, painlessly, into my side.
If Mikey were here, I wondered, what among all of this movement would he find remarkable? If, in some moment of disregard, I unmasked my thoughts about the mammoth creatures of the harbor, would he laugh, or would a part of him, either tiny or considerable, find validity in my impressions? I did not favor one hypothetical response over the other, but I longed to know which it might be.
I found Marie about fifteen minutes later waiting for me at the station.
"You could have just gone home," I said as she squeezed me tightly.
"Nonsense," she said. "I haven't been here long. Besides, you never carry an umbrella. I couldn't stand the thought of you out in the rain." She opened hers and pulled me under it. She wasn't very tall, so I had to duck a little until she laughed and handed it to me. "Here, you hold it."
Marie was an only child whose parents moved from Korea when she was very young. We met during the first week of college and had bonded over our tentatively chosen path to an accounting degree. I had been drawn to her initially because of her energetic disposition; people with that kind of unbridled verve and spontaneity often rubbed off on me. Later on she would offer undying loyalty, even during my most self-infatuated period to date, the eleventh hour of my failed relationship.
"You saved me," she said. "Another night alone watching Netflix--I would have died."
I laughed. "I was dreading the same thing. That's why I texted you."
