Her and Him

 Though it seemed awkward to sit in the car outside of the hotel listening to music, neither one of us left. He put on one of his favorite Zeppelin songs, trying to prove to me the greatest drum solo of all time. "If you want to go inside you can," he said, "you don’t have to sit here and listen to this. You’re looking at me weird.” I argued, “I am not! I want to listen, I really do.” We stayed in the car for almost an hour listening to song after song. Finally we got out, and started playing with a slingshot he bought at a gas station that day. We shot rocks into the street for a while, he looked over at me and smiled, I felt nervous. Finally we walked to the hotel. His shoe had come untied so he lifted his foot and looked at me and without saying anything I bent down and tied it for him. We walked into the elevator, didn’t say anything as the doors closed and elevator went up. The doors opened, and I walked out to go to my room. As the elevator doors closed he said goodnight, then went up to his room.


  We were planning on hiking that Friday before we had to head back, but instead we ended up leaving early because of a snowstorm that hit up north. It took us eight hours to get home. On the road I played Mississippi John Hurt, and he remarked how he had never met anyone else who had heard of him. We stopped and had dinner at an Indian restaurant in the town I used to live in. He kicked me from across the table. I started texting someone and he told me it was rude to text at the dinner table. On the way back to the car, I showed him where my business had been, he smiled.

 The next Monday we went to lunch together. It snowed all weekend, and there were plies of snow on all the bushes outside the building so when we got back he told me to build a miniature snowman with him on top of the hedge. We made snowballs, stacked them on top of each other, stuck sticks in for arms and a nose. 

Everyday there were moments when he’d smile at me, push me, when we would tease each other and stare. We sat next to each other at lunch and at meetings, went to each other’s desks to talk, stuck together at company events. I asked him stupid questions just so I could talk to him, he called me for no reason. People started teasing me about him, assuming there was something going on between us, saying he had a crush on me. And though technically there was nothing going on between us, it felt like there was.

I read Asimov; he read Vonnegut. I listened to Neil Young; he listened to The Talking Heads. I talked about Mormonism; he talked about Catholicism. I gushed over Whitman; he gushed over Blake. We talked about the meaning of truth, talked about our families, met each other’s friends, discussed the news, shared a desire to make a difference in the world, went to concerts together. At the last one he found an empty space, took my hand and made me swing dance with him. "This is what friends do?” I kept asking.

  I told him about the rumors. I told him because I wanted to see what he would do, how he would react. I had no expectations. I thought it was funny. But he got upset, talked about how this could ruin his reputation, how he could get fired for these kinds of rumors. I had to calm him down, assure him that he would not get fired; all would be well because nothing had happened. But he was still upset. The next day we had a company meeting. There was an empty seat next to me. Normally he would have sat down next to me, but this time he didn’t. He went to the other side of the room and didn’t even acknowledge me. We ignored each other. 

It’s been two months since he’s been gone, and despite my attempts at keeping in contact with him, I have no idea what he is doing or how things are going in his life. He doesn’t share with me. He keeps his distance. He has his own friends in his new city in his new life and he doesn’t give me a second thought. He doesn’t need to anymore. I’m not around, no longer an obligation. I regularly hear about him from other people who he actually keeps in contact with. “You haven’t heard from him?” they ask, rubbing salt in my wound. When they talk about him, he sounds like a different person to me, or maybe my perception of him has changed, or maybe I never really knew him to begin with. Sometimes I wonder if he even existed; it feels as though I made everything up and our relationship meant nothing. I was just convenient. I was just fun in the moment.

And so I’m left behind feeling sad, empty, and delusional, trying to figure out how to let go.

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I listened to Remain in Light for the first time, at the perfect time. So many questions I’m afraid to answer of the time, late at night, a couple beers deep, synchronously during a text conversation with a friend on a similar subject. The music moves in and out; layers of melody and harmony interlaced with layers of rhythm that fit the conflict. Dissonance and chaos, coherence and simplicity.

I watch her. She is simple and complicated, frustrating and easy, carefree and moody, patient and short-tempered, clueless and intelligent. I want to be near her, I want to touch her, to talk to her, to look at her. I notice the curve of her body, the color in her eyes, her face in mischief, and in happiness, and in thought. She watches, brushes against me, smiles, shares, discusses, argues. We are electric, but we are silent. The timing is off, and we both know it, though neither one of us will say it. There is a dichotomy between what is palpable and what is desired, which leaves a gap that is evident but not acknowledged.

 There is something beautiful about the silence, something beautiful about leaving the gap unacknowledged. We keep living, interacting, and watching without the complication of making our feelings known by saying. We understand each other by how we act towards one another, how we look at each other. The mystery remains, the excitement intact. Words are futile. Expression through speech often leads to ruin, and we both understand.

And yet satisfaction comes from expression.  At times I wish I could tell her how I think she is beautiful, but I don’t. I am afraid if we acknowledge the gap, the thrill will leave. Maybe we will find out there was nothing there at all, it was the secrecy holding it all together. The dichotomy works, it is what keeps the desire strong. I can feel her growing restless, attempting to vocalize what we have kept silent. I ignore her restlessness and keep my distance, hoping that will satiate her desire to talk. I don't think she understands what I could lose.

 When I go, I will say nothing. I will leave, she will stay, our lives will naturally separate, we will both go on to find others to love, others willing to acknowledge the void that we won’t, and it will work, and we will forget about each other.