A Handshake from the Past
I am standing at the bus stop in the rain again. We are discussing something funny, though I don’t add to the joke, it seems like something based on a previous discussion between them. I don’t want to go home. I want to talk to these people a lot more. I will miss them. I vaguely know when I’ll see them next, but it’s not soon enough.
Eventually, my bus arrives. It is the early bus. I will have to spend a lot of time waiting at the next station, but it feels like I’m also being asked to leave so that they can have privacy. I know that R and J (a new J) want to talk to one another in private.
A minute before my bus arrives as we are saying our goodbyes, R steps forward, smiles, and offers me a hug. The world cracks, then shatters, overlayed by somewhere else. I am no longer here. I am somewhere else, somewhere where it is also raining, pattering against the roof of the top floor apartment. There is a soft blanket beneath me, buffering me from the couch. I can smell rosewater tea on the low coffee table, which is covered haphazardly with a collection of student assignments. Hamlet is paused on the television. Despite the rain and the warmth of the tea radiating towards me, the world feels dead. I feel dead. Finally, T appears. She ruffles my hair as she goes past and sits down on the same couch as me instead of going back to her own. She brings her legs up and rests them on my thighs, so I sit up. Her calves are cold above the socks, but it’s not unpleasant.
“Hey.” She smiles. “You look sad.”
I nod. I know I do. I try to deny it anyway, despite already admitting it.
She pulls herself up with a slightly overexaggerated groan and looks at me. She doesn’t acknowledge the contradiction. I can’t meet her eye contact. “I love you.”
The words stun me. I look at her. “You do?”
She gives another smile. “Yeah. I do. Come here.” She opens her arms.
I practically leap into them. Her legs are in the way, and I send them crashing into the tea in my haste to have her embrace. Maybe I don't. I don’t care. I need her. I want to press every part of myself against her, and she does the same back. She puts one hand over my back, another caressing my hair. I want to cry. I am crying. I am trying to say words but nothing comprehensible is coming out. I know what they would be now.
Please don’t let me go. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything for this not to end.
There is no time. There is just her embrace. Sometimes she kisses my neck to tease me, and I shiver. I can smell the bodysoap, the slight sweat mixed with the smell of her woollen jumper, feel the warmth of her breath, the thuds of her heart racing then gradually slowing. I surprised her, good. This is who I am. I am still exciting. I am not broken. If I am exciting and not broken, people will love me. I am loved. I am loved and I am never letting this go. Please, please don’t let this moment ever end. I will die if it ends.
I am back at the bus station. I know if I accept this embrace, I will never want to let go. I know this physical offering of friendship will be clung to like a monkey to their wire mother, even if they are not a wire mother, they are my friend. But that offer of intimacy, of touch, will consume me. It will teach my brain “This person will give you what you need.” And I will never stop being hungry for it. I will greedily devour everyone and everything in the way of it, even if it hurts them, hurts me, and makes everyone around me miserable. The hole in my heart will never be filled, but I will shovel in whatever shred of intimacy I can find regardless, even if it destroys everything. I do a double take. I am a monster wearing loosely hung human flesh.
R notices my pause. “Are you not a hugging person?”
We shake hands.