May 15, 2017

Last Days of Indian Summer

It was t-shirt weather a year ago.

The short sleeve of my clown shirt weakly encircled an arm that swung out declaratively, and my hand took his hand.
He went rigid, centimetres behind me, scarcely able to match my flight-day pace. My hair flowed long and wavy, white blonde onto yellow with soft swatches of pastels in a delightful mess of home colourist failures, and the mermaidesque cascade swung about me as I marched. I remember the feel of it grazing my bicep as I swung my head to look at him, and there I saw a smile of delight, of surprise, of pride. He liked being seen with me. He liked me showing the world I was his and he was mine.

Only, he wasn't. And I wasn't. Within an hour our palms would be parted and so would our mouths and arms and souls.
I was going and it was ending. It had to. It didn't work. We tried and we didn't try, but we'd done a shitload of failing.

There was no going forward. Forward would be backward.

But there was love. 
The words of 3, uttered, at last, the night before, when we were already over but still couldn't stay apart.

And now I was going, as if just headed away for the weekend. No-one watching us would know - the sight of this panicking, smiling, rushing girl, fingers entwined with the guy in the flanno and work boots moving like the tail of a star, in admiration, in a last wisp of real happiness.

It's not t-shirt weather this year.


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