We agree to meet at the Bean Counter. A small coffee shop in the city. A place I’ve never been before. Doing something I’ve never done before. I am brave. I am brave for Love.
Is that what this is, Love? Could it be That? How could I know?
He is a drummer. Taller. Skinnier that I expected. Large green, beautiful eyes. They are piercing. He seems confident. I wonder who he is more than I wonder in the other direction, not because wondering is not needed in that direction, rather that it seems more important to look out. This is where the green eyes are, after all. The ones looking back at me. What do they see? This is what I wonder. This is the wrong thing to wonder. I wonder where you are now. That is what I am wondering. IS this wrong? How do I know now. How could I know. Oh, there you are, right in the center of my chest. The same place I always find you. Keep forgetting that I am supposed to look that way.
The man distracts me now. I am reserved. This is mistaken for confidence. I use it to my advantage and make no correction.
He is joking with me. I don’t remember the joke now. It was a long time ago. I laughed. Would I laugh now? I don’t think I ever found it funny, but he was joking with me. Someone was looking at me. Joking with me. Isn’t this what you wanted? Someone. Ask him a question. Can you hear his voice?
It’s deep. I see his Adam’s apple in his skinny neck. He is talking about his diet. Clean. Doesn’t drink. The guys in his band do though.
He is a drummer, but he likes to play guitar too. I used to play piano. But right now my power is gone. I have already given it all to those eyes.
“I thought this was just a story,” he says.
“It was supposed to be.”
“So, what are you doing?”
“Having a conversation instead.”
“Well, what do you want to talk about?”
“Can we talk about God?”
“I don’t know if I have much to say about that.”
“I’m not sure what I’m still doing here,” I say, and push my chair back a little.
“What are you crying about,” he asks, looking at me like he’s witnessing a car accident.
“I am just remembering something,” I say. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“If you don’t tell me what is going on, I am going to get very uncomfortable, and I may need to leave.”
“I would prefer you leave then look at my tears and tell me I am wrong for having them.”
“That’s what you should have said.”
“I don’t know if I ever had the opportunity.”
“So you’re saying it now.”
“Yes.” I look over at the counter, the glass display of baked goods…I am just about desperate for a brownie, but something makes me think of the boy on the schoolyard.
“Just what we need,” he says with a smirk on his face. “Another fat girl at this school.”
This boy doesn’t know who I am, but I remember him. He’s the one who gave me a small toy on the bus and told me he loved me. My five-year-old heart had believed.
Mom told me to give the toy back.
The next day I went up to him on the bus and handed it to him. “I love you too,” I say, loud enough for the whole bus to hear.
He laughs at me. “What are you talking about? Gross. Get away from me,” he says.
I stand for a moment feeling my cheeks get hot, same as my ears. I go and sit at the back of the bus. I will never say I love you to a boy again until I meet the one with the green eyes.
“I’m sorry I lied to you,” I say to him now.
“What did you lie about?”
“Who I am.”
“Why would you do that?
“Because I didn’t know.”
“And now you do?”
“Yes, it’s what you didn’t want to talk about.”
“How would you know if you never gave me a chance?”
“That’s the problem. I did.”
“Now you know better.”
“Now I do better. I know what I want now.”
“And what’s that?”
“Me.”