Day Two hundred and seventy four - Goddess on a hiway

Three things I knew to be true about Damaris : one, she never said she loved me; two, she never stayed, and three : she never did want to be mine. After that day when we first fucked, I wouldn't see her again for a number of years. Oh, I returned there every single day while I was staying at my dad's, and then every time I visited I'd go there, but she was a ghost, a fleeting apparition. I asked my dad if he had ever seen her, I described her as best I could, but it didn't ring a bell. Sometimes I'd see people by that stop where she rode me to completion, and I'd enquire as to whether they'd ever seen her, but no one ever said they did. I pined for her desperately, and for long years after I'd masturbate every single day thinking about her. But time does pass, and I find myself being a freshman in college. I started by studying law, but I hated it. Then I changed my major to history, and yeah, though I did love it, all it got me was a job working as a mailman. So while I was trying to find my footing in academia, who do I find out is majoring in Engineering? Damaris, god damn Damaris. The first time we see each other, she pretends she doesn't know me. It hurts a little bit, but it's ok. I don't see her again for a few days, and then one day there's a knock on my door - I was reading some dreadfully dull book, almost asleep, and I jumped at the knock. I go to the door to see who it is - I thought it likely to be some other student come to ask me for something -  and as I open the door, I see her in her full glory. Her hair is long and black as night and glossy, it offsets her beautiful skin tone, it plays with my senses. Her smell is an assault of concupiscence, she smells of desire, and of fucking. Again, she asks me : 'What are you doing here?', and I thought it was obvious. I say I'm majoring in history, and she laughs. She walks to my desk, and leans forward, putting her hands on top of the desk. Damaris shakes her head, and says, 'What the fuck an I going to do with you?', and then... and then Damaris locks the door, pulls down the blinds, and tells me to get naked, and lie on the bed naked. I obeyed, puppet that I am in her hands, and she undresses and gets on top of me. I try to adjust my body, but she says no, she tells me not to move. She in relentless, she comes at me undinal, she breaks me, breaks in me, I break in her. It's savage but brief, and we're spent in mere moments. With me still inside her, albeit in a very limp manner, she lays her head down on my chest, her flowing hair going over the side of the bed. 'Tell me', she said. 'Tell me again.' And I couldn't help myself : I loved her. I always would.

That, alas, would be the only time she would grace me with her presence, though I saw her every day for five years. It was impossible not to see her, she seemed ubiquitous, the kind of girl everyone wanted and liked and lusted for, as well the kind of girl all other girls detested. I never dated anyone during my time in college, how could I? Who could compare to her, to this goddess? No one. Ah, but she would let others adore at the feet of her altar, and plenty of them. I tried to play it like I didn't care, but I did. It... hurt. Especially when she knew just how much I loved her. But I thought it best to give her a wide berth, and kept to myself, mostly. Very close to graduation day, I'm at a party - someone had told me that it was supposed to be a low-key affair, but it seemed like half the campus found their way there. I decide not to linger there overlong. My time here is almost done, I just have to endure a couple more weeks, and then I'll never have to return here. I drink a couple of beers, chat with some of the stragglers, and then decide to leave. As I leave, I see her sitting down on the stairs out front. I run down the stairs, and then turn to face her. She has her head buried between her hands. 'Damaris', I call. She looks up - I can see she's been crying. 'What happened?', I asked, 'Did someone hurt you?', and she just shakes her head. Then she says a number. 'What?, I say. She repeats it. 'OK. But what does that mean?', and she says it's the number of guys she's slept with these past few years. 'And that's not including you.', she says. I'm confused, did I matter that little to her? Curious, I ask 'Why didn't you tally me up, then?', and Damaris says 'Because I didn't love any of them.' Of course I press on. 'Do you love me, Damaris?', I asked her, kneeling before her so we are face to face. She says nothing. I can see she wants to, but she can't. No words leave her mouth. 'Is this how your heart treats all strangers?', I asked, and was offered more silence. I turned my back to go and didn't look back.

I regretted majoring in history almost instantaneously : I knew I didn't want to teach, I knew I didn't want to be in the confines of academia ever again, but I hoped I could find a job in some museum or whatever. Not that I tried very hard to look for those jobs, my attempts were always half-assed and whenever I got an interview I made sure to sabotage myself beforehand. So I did the next best thing, and decided to become a mailman. The pay wasn't that bad, I could support myself with it and it came with some benefits. And for some reason, the notion of being out on the streets delivering letters always seemed really appealing to me. I took to it naturally, and it also helped that I've always known the city pretty well. Luckily for me, I got a pretty decent route, no going through the dodgy bits of town, but rather a posh and upscale part of the city. Every day I'd get to the post office, collect my stack of letters and packages, and made my way over to where my route began, trailing a cart behind me. It's close to a year working at the post when, rifling through my stack of letters, I see one that of addressed to a 'Mrs. Damaris Scott', and I wondered just how many people called Damaris there are in this city. Oh, I knew the answer to that already - there's only her. Worst still, this is a registered letter, meaning that she has to sign for it. I panic, and see if anyone's up to change their routes with me for the day. No one is. What do I do? Do I just 'forget' the letter? I mean, I could 'lose' it. But no, it wouldn't sit right with my conscience. I grin and bear it, and go about my day. I eventually get to her address, and boy, is it posh. There's even a concierge, and he buzzes me in to deliver the mail. Had I never been here before? I let the concierge know that I have a registered delivery for one of the residents. He asks who it is, I say her name, and he exclaims loudly, 'Ah, Mrs. Damaris, very good. I shall let her know at once you are coming up.' I ask the guy if I can leave the trolley at the reception while I go up. He says ok, and off I go down the hallway, and up an elevator. I'm getting antsy, I shouldn't have done this. Beads of sweat run down my back, and just before I knock on the door, my stomach groans audibly. I take a deep breath, and then knock on the door. She takes a little time to open the door, and as she does, she opens it very slightly, as though she was suspicious of something. Then she looks at me, and opens the door a little bit more. 'I know what you're going to ask, but I am here to deliver mail for you. Yes?', I say, proffering to her a letter as well as a slip she needs to sign. As she signs it, I casually say, 'So... Mrs. Damaris, is it?', and she says nothing. Then she ducks inside, and comes back out and says, 'You can't come in. Not today. But leave me your phone number, I'll call you.' And to myself, I think 'Yeah, right.', but I jot down my number anyway. 'We'll talk soon', she says, and before I'm even out of the building, I get a text from her telling me to come again tomorrow after work. Of course I go. Of course I do. When did I ever have a choice?

Day Two hundred and seventy three - Damaris

Damaris. I met Damaris on my very first day of school, and already everyone felt unease around her. She was taller, faster, stronger than anyone else. Every single kid at that school knew to stay well away from her, except me. No, I loved her since the very first I saw her, though obviously I didn't know that at the time. But I did, I did then, and I do now. We started talking some weeks after school started, one day during recess, when I noticed she'd brought nothing to eat. I sat by her side, and asked her if she wanted to share my sandwich, and she ended up eating most of it. That was ok, even then I knew I would give up anything for her. We became close friends, different though we were : whereas she was tall, and gangly, and yet athletic, I was small and a wee bit pudgy. I was a runt compared to her, but we got along really well. Damaris was odd even at that early age : her skin was almost grey, and she had very long hair that was always neatly combed running down her back and past her waist. In a strange way, she seemed like a woman grown stuck in the body of a child. And then one day Damaris stopped coming to the school. We'd learn, in time, that she had fallen ill, and then when she got better, their parents had decided to move to a different place. I never knew where she lived, so I never got to say goodbye to her. For years after that, she remained in my mind, a memory that would never fade. And, in time, I gave up any hope of ever seeing her again.

Fast forward some years, I'm barely in my teens, and it's after my parents had divorced. That summer, I split my holidays between my mom and my dad, staying in the city with mom first, and then going to this little town some miles away from here to where my dad had moved to. The rent was cheaper, he said, and the added commute didn't really bother him that much. I think he really liked it there, and at least he seemed happier. All they did the past few years they were together was fight, and everyone felt miserable at home. So this happens a couple of days after I got to his place : dad has to go to work every day, so he gives me a spare key to the house, and tells me that I should get to know the town better. And I do just that, but don't get me wrong, this is one of those tiny towns that you get to know pretty well in no time at all. But more than getting to know the town, I got to know its surroundings, I got to know the abandoned quarry, the old mine that has been sealed off for decades now, I got to know the lush meadows that lie a stone's throw away from here. And I got to know a field that leads to a very peaceful river that flowed lazily by. I spend many an hour there, underneath the shade of a nearby tree, lost in wonder, lost in thought, lost in the pages of a good book. And it was here that I'd see Damaris again for the first time in years.

I had been going to that spot regularly for about two weeks, and though it was summer and it was pretty hot, I never had the courage to take off my clothes and take a dip in the cold water, tempted though I often felt. And to this day I'm not sure if it was happenstance or just plain carelessness, but I'm sitting there by the tree one afternoon, when I see someone getting close to the bank. My heart beat fast, fast, fast, faster! I recognized her at once. But I stayed glued to the ground. Especially because in one swift movement she took off her dress and shoes and dove straight into the water. I... I wanted nothing more than to keep looking, to admire that figure of hers - she had grown, and boy, had she filled out, but I didn't think it would be right to just sit and gawk. So I turned my back to her, and sat on the opposite side of the tree. Some time later, and in the meantime I'd given up on trying to read the book, because my mind was filled with images of her, I hear a voice shouting from a ways away, yelling at me. She was letting a litany of accusations and derogatory names fly my way, she probably thought me some kind of perverted peeping tom. As she approaches, I turn my head and look from behind the tree at her. The insults continue, a barrage of verbal abuse unlike any I'd ever heard before. My head peeks out again, and the she stops mid sentence. She stands there looking at me, her arms crossed, tapping her feet, looking incredibly cross at me, and then says 'What are you doing here?'

'What are you doing here?', I say in return. 'And where did you go, all these years ago? I cried myself to sleep every single night for months on end when I found out you'd left!', and Damaris, god damned Damaris, she says, 'I waited for you all this time. Summer, spring, autumn, winter. I waited here for you.' And Damaris sits down by my side, lets her body slide down to the ground, and I can't take my eyes off of her, she's supple and lithe, and she snakes around me. 'Tell me', she says, and I don't even have to ask her what she means by that. Without a care in the world, she takes off her dress again, and undoes my pants. I'm not sure what's happening, but please don't let this be a dream. 'Tell me', she says, as she positions herself atop of me, and plunges myself inside her. I feel a matted stickiness in her thighs, and my fingers come slick with blood. 'Tell me', she says. My god damned Damaris, I love you.

Day Two hundred and seventy two - She dances

Nate wakes up late. Well, later than his usual, at least. He looks at the clock on the bedside table, and sees it's half past ten. He stretches, then turns to the other side of the bed - empty. He can still smell her. He can still feel the warmth of her presence. It feels like she had left the bed just moments ago. He sits on the side of the bed, his feet bare on the floor. He feels tired, he's always felt tired since... since that day. He puts his head between his hands, his arms resting on his knees. He had the dream again, last night. The dream where he'd been in a coma, and was on the brink of death, and she somehow brought him back to life. He often has that dream. He ruffles his hair, it's gotten long and shaggy and he needs a haircut. His fingers trace the scar that runs down the exact middle of his left eye; it's deep, and the tissue feels alien, and it will never not hurt - though all the doctors say it had been a minor miracle that the wound wasn't any deeper, else he would've lost that eye. He looks around : the door is closed, and so are the windows. The house is quiet. It's time, he thinks, to go take a shower.

The hot water that runs down his body soothes him. The last visions of the dream start to ebb away from his memory, but that's all right - he knows he'll have that dream again soon enough. As he finishes the shower, and dries himself, he can hear the sound of a car approaching. The unmistakable crunch of tires on gravel. The doors opening and then being slammed shut, and above all, the sound of their laughter. Nate smiles, he loves having that dream. It always reminds him that his dreams did indeed come true. It was hard, at first, he needed a lot of physical therapy for months on end, but Geraldine was his rock. She never left his side. He got better, and things got better. And one day she told him she was expecting - and this time there were no doubts, no second thoughts. They were out in front, on the sofa, when Geraldine told him the news. They'd soon find out that a baby girl would be gracing their lives, and when the time came to choose a name for her, well - they were stuck. They couldn't decide on one, and it was only about halfway her pregnancy that they found the perfect name. A fragrant, beautiful, but unassuming flower, they'd often seen it in their own garden, and, they thought, Violet may be the one. Violet Mae, indeed.

If Geraldine had a soundtrack that played around her wherever she went, it would be one filled with the trilling, thrilling beauty of birdsong. Horns would blare in the background, and everything would be in the major key. It would be sound of happiness, and joy and love. It's the sound of her soul. It's a perpetual song that plays inside her heart, and she dances as she walks, her footsteps trailing flowers in her wake. When she sees Nate waiting for them by the door, she races Violet to see who can reach him first - she always lets her win. They kiss by the door, and Nate bends down to grab his daughter. She hugs him tight, and they go in the kitchen. 'Why didn't you wake me up?', Nate asks, and Geraldine says she just couldn't bring herself to do it, he was sleeping so soundly. It did do him good, though a huge part of him would have rather woken up early and gone with them. It's a ritual they have every Saturday morning, to go to the town, and then shop for groceries in the market. Sometimes they have their breakfast at the diner across the general store, the same where she'd seen him years before. Who knew they made great pancakes? Violet loves them, even more than the ones they make at home. Nate sits with his daughter on his lap - she looks so much like her mother, though sometimes, in certain lights, she looks like him too. They were long sporting the same hairdo, long Dutch braids running down their backs. 

Later that day, they have lunch outside and immediately after, Violet plops down on the sofa, and falls asleep. It's warm out, a beautiful late spring day. Nate and Geraldine sit by the sofa, down on the porch floor. Hands held, her head resting on his shoulders, they sit in peace. 'You know', Nate says, 'I dreamt all the while I was under. And some of what I dreamt are things that came to pass. But also... had already happened. Somewhere else. Somewhen else. To a me that wasn't me, with a you that wasn't you.' Geraldine nods. 'You told me about that once, when we were at the planetarium.' Nate feels proud that she remembers that moment still. But he knows her well, he trusts her well. When she said she remembered everything, he believed her. 'Yeah. What I dreamt was... it felt like I was part of a pattern somehow. Not just me, you, us, all of us. Something that has happened, is happening, hasn't yet happened, will always happen. A loop - a loop we wanted. And all the time while I slept, it was your voice I sought, your voice I clung to whenever you visited, its echoes sounding deep inside my soul.' Nate stops talking and stares straight ahead. 'Sometimes I dreamt you'd stopped coming. I... I don't know where I was, but I felt so immensely sad, I prayed that I could somehow cry on the outside, and someone would notice and wake me up before I died.' He turns back to Geraldine, she'd unbraided her hair, and was now letting it fall all over her shoulders. 'But that was just a dream, just a dream.', he says.

Day Two hundred and seventy one - Escape from within

If Geraldine had a soundtrack that played around her wherever she went, it would be one filled with a melancholy piano, its very notes tugging at your heart. Then, you would hear the lonely sound of strings, playing a mournful adagio. The strings would start swelling, and the piano would be joined by a voice, a primal howling that sings this dirge. It's the only song that has played inside her head since she woke up in a hospital bed. And when Geraldine came home, she didn't change a thing : everything remained as it was when they left. She couldn't bring herself to change anything, it might take away some precious memory of him. This house where she is now, where she'd previously only been for a handful of hours, it became her haven. She doesn't leave here, except for a a couple of hours a day when she has to go the hospital, and her aunt drops by periodically to deliver her groceries and toiletries. Everything hurts, Geraldine thinks. And even staying here hurts, because of the memories. But anywhere else hurts more. So she stays, and she cries, and she feels herself withering. 

Every day has become the same for her. She wakes up at the exact same time every day. Some days she doesn't even eat her breakfast. Some days she doesn't even eat. She can't even remember the last time she brushed her teeth. Geraldine looks at the mirror, and see her hair becoming matted and closer to straw than to gold. She's very thin now, gaunt even. She wants to punch the mirror until it cracks and her knuckles are slick with her blood. She wants something that hurts more than this. This is her life, now. But by far the worst part are the nights - every night she dreams of him. She dreams of them. Sometimes, in the dream, they stayed home. Other times, he looked at her for a fraction of a second less. In dreams everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. But in real life, nothing is beautiful and everything hurts. Sometimes she wonders just how much longer she'll be able to hold on. 'I feel I'm getting weaker', she says to herself. But she doesn't give up. 

She's sitting down in a chair by the dinner table in the kitchen, the boxes with the letters he'd written to her neatly stacked. She has read them all innumerable times; the letters, the journals, and the manuscript he'd written. It was rough, in need of some polish, but it had promise. Now, it's just a broken promise for a broken heart. She's reading one of the letters, her trembling hands holding it like the most precious treasure. Earlier, she had received a call, one she dreaded receiving for months now. The time had come, the order had been given. The call to arms was never true. She feels herself running on autopilot. As if someone had commandeered her body and was now going through the motions. She hears her voice on the phone, but does recognize it. It's someone else talking, not her. It's someone else saying she understands, because she doesn't. It's someone else saying she will be on her way, because she'll be staying here with the memories and the tears. It's someone else driving down that road, that damned road, and making her way to the hospital. It's someone else parking the car, going out of the car, and locking it. It's someone else who's comforted by others who received the same call. It's someone else - someone who vaguely looks like her, who sort of sounds like her - who's talking to the doctor. She knows it's her who's crying her eyes out, though. She knows it's her who's nodding at the words that are being said. She knows it's her standing in a room looking down at the love of her life, tubes through his body. She knows it's her who has to say goodbye. The doctor tells her that whenever she's ready, she just has to let him know. She nods. 

Geraldine stands by the bedside, and watches as his chest rises and falls in time with the respirator. She tells him how much she loves him - how much she has always loved him, and always will. She tells him she's afraid of what will happen now, she's afraid she'll do something stupid and desperate. She wants to go too, to join him forever, wherever it is they end up in. Her legs threaten to give in, she's on the verge of collapsing, how can one human being carry so much pain inside her? She runs her fingers through his hair, this is the last time I'll ever do it, she already hates the fact that soon she won't even remember how he smelled, what his voice sounded like, and how certain details of his face will fade from her memory in time. This is not fair, she thinks. She covers her face with her hands, and sobs uncontrollably. There will be only pain from now on. Only pain. She would gladly suffer all pain across creation if he could be well. Her head throbs. Her eyes are bleary. She feels sick right down to her soul. Don't ask me to do this, she repeats over and over again. She leans down, gets close to his face and kisses his lips one final time. She feels her tears running down her face as she kisses him, falling down onto his face, tracing an Iliad of woes. It's time, she says.

There's a button by the side of the bed that will alert a nurse, and then the doctor will come, and then it will all be over. She presses it, and waits, and dies on the inside. Every second feels like an age, each agonizing moment stretching into a torturous eternity. She's humming the song he loves, their special song. It's been so many things to them, now it's just a song to say goodbye. She hears the doctor coming in the room, and he asks her if she's ready. She lies, and says yes. She tells the doctor she needs to look at him one more time. She approaches the bed, silently, and her heart breaks as she feels the skin of his hands. 'I'm going to miss you so much', she says, as she grabs hold to a limp, lifeless hand. 'I love you so much.', she says. 'I will always love you.' She entwines her fingers on his, as they'd done so many times in the past. 'How I wish I could hold your hand forever', she says, squeezing his hand. And his hand... his hand twitches, and squeezes back, albeit feebly. He opens his eyes slowly, as if they'd been glued together while he slept. There's recognition in his eyes at once when she sees her. Time stands still. Her eyes go wide, there's so much joy in her now, so much love. Geraldine kisses him, and with her kiss his life begins.

Day Two hundred and seventy - In a sweater poorly knit

I wake up early in the morning, though we went to bed late. I got used to waking up really early, so it's not often that I find myself sleeping in. But she was tired, and she sleeps soundly. I sit by the side of the bed, and watch her sleep. She twitches here and there, and I run my fingers through her long, soft hair. It's good that she's sleeping, I have something to do. I get dressed, and go out to the shed. There's something there I need. I open the door to the shed, and pick up a few boxes, then go back inside the kitchen. I put the boxes on top of the table, and open them. Though I know full well what's inside, I still check the boxes. This puts a smile on my face, but damn, does it make me nervous as well. I put the kettle on, and light the stove. We're going to need a good amount of coffee to face the talks that lie ahead. While I wait for the water to heat, I go back to my room where she sleeps. I look at her - I cannot escape her. Never. I was a fool to ever think I could. You can't escape love, and this is so much more than that : it is what the most pious would call Latria, a form of devotional love so sacred it is reserved for god alone. But here she is, and is she not my god, my goddess? My hands caress her back softly. I feel the words coming out of my mouth, I say them quietly, words I've known for so so long and that only ever made any sense in relation to her : 'I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion – I have shudder’d at it – I shudder no more – I could be martyr’d for my Religion – Love is my religion – I could die for that – I could die for you.' Geraldine was already awake, her big eyes looking at me, even before I finished my words. 'Morning', she says, stifling a yawn. 'Was that Keats? And is that fresh coffee I smell?' I nod, and tell her to meet me in the kitchen after she takes a shower. I hand her a couple of towels, and she asks me if I want to join her. 'Yes. But... no. We have to talk, ok? I'm going to fix us something to eat, then we can start figuring things out.' She leaps from the bed and hugs me tight, naked but for my t-shirt she slept in. I hold her just as tight. Her smell envelops me. 'Come on', I say, after a few moments. We get up and walk out the room hand in hand. 'Off you go', I say, pointing at the bathroom door, 'and off I go', pointing at the kitchen. We kiss and she says she'll miss me. Jesus, I miss you already, and you're still here.

She does take her time in the shower, which is just as well - I've never ever been any good at cooking, and even the most basic stuff I struggle with. It never bothered me, personally, but... Anyway, as I'm busy prepping and cooking, I hear her coming out of the shower. She starts to sing a song, softly at first, then she allows her voice to become louder and airier, and the house is filled with song. I know that song, I know that song. She's coming up behind me, I hear her footsteps and her voice, her singing voice. She holds me by my waist from behind, and rests her head on my back while she sings. We sway slowly to the rhythm of her singing. When she's done, I turn to her and say, 'Salka', and she jumps towards me and kisses me. 'Salka', she says. I never, ever forgot that song. It's the soundtrack to my religion, my evensong on this hymnal of desire that is her. 'What's that you're cooking?', she says sitting on an old wooden stool beside me. She looks up at me, almost like a child. What am I cooking? Well, it just so happens it's green eggs and ham. Do you like green eggs and ham?, I ask, and she bursts out laughing. She says, 'I do not like them, Sam-I-Am. I do not like green eggs and ham.' I lean down and my head is now level with hers. It seems as if we're going to kiss, but I just boop her on the nose and say, 'Well, them's the breaks : you're going to eat the and you're going to enjoy them. Probably even ask for more. Or so I hope.' I turn back to the counter and fix us our plates. She grabs the coffee pot, and places it on the table. I motion to the cupboard, where she can find some mugs for us. This is good. This is... nice. In the best way possible. We both sit down at the table, she at an angle so we have to turn sideways a little to face each other. The easy part was done. Now come all the hard bits.

I take a bite from my green eggs and ham - it's a bit bland, could've used a bit more seasoning, but it's still pretty decent. She seems to like it as well. I take a good, long sip from the cup, and then say, 'You remember how bad it got? When every word was like thunder and every silence left a bruise? How we just couldn't make it work, no matter what we did?' She pauses at this, and rests her hands snug between her hands. She's not looking at me now, she's elsewhere. Then she seems to snap back to reality, and starts fussing with her hair - it's grown so, so long. She bunches a section of it into a long ponytail that runs down her back, and then separates two long tresses, one on either side. She starts braiding her hair, head bowed down, and then when she's done, she says, 'I remember. I remember everything. I... I never stopped thinking about it. And hey - chastising myself for it', says she, showing me her scarred arms. But I also thought a lot about the last time we were together. I didn't want to go. I didn't want you to go. But you deserved to be happy... so I left. And yet... there was still a chance. That day, there was still a shot. And I looked at you, and I wanted to hold you so bad, I wanted you to hold me so much. How I wished it was forever you would hold me. And... I let you walk away.' It's only then that she seems to notice the boxes that I'd laid on top of the table. She looks at them studiously, as if enraptured by their mere presence there. 'What are those?', she asked. And I reply, 'Well, it's... it's a surprise. Open them, and find out for yourself.' We'd both finished eating, and I lifted the plates from the table and took then to the counter. 'Start by... this one', I say, sliding a box over to her. 'I'm going to do the dishes.'

I hear her open the box, as I stand, my back to her, washing the dishes. She's rifling through the contents, uncertain at what she's looking at. 'Are these...?', she attempts to ask. I was done with the dishes, and so I sit back by her side. 'Every single day since we... since that last day. I wrote you a letter, and put it in an envelope.' She rifles through them all, and says, 'But they're all postmarked. Why didn't you send them to me?', and I say '...because you deserved to be happy.' She empties the first box onto the table, then checks the others. One has more letters and the others one has my journals and something else she'll maybe find interesting. As she looks at the letters, dozens and dozens and dozens of them, I tell her that they're not all postmarked. The first few hundred, sure. 'But I kept on writing them. Every day, just before my day finished, I sat here and wrote to you and told you about my day. Sometimes I imagined these scenarios where we were in a long distance relationship and this was us trying to make things work.' She clutches a bunch of letters in her hand, and asks, 'But why?', and I smiled. 'Because I didn't want to forget you. Ever.' Geraldine looks at me, with pleading eyes. 'Can I open them?', she says. 'Sure', I say, 'they were always meant to be read by you.'

She spends a long while reading the letters - not all of them, not yet, but some of them. She reads them silently, religiously. She uses a paring knife to cut open the envelope, and she does so deftly. One swift slice, and it's open. After she's done reading one, she puts it back on the envelope, and opens another one. She tries to fight back the tears, but sometimes I see her wiping them from her eyes. 'There's something written on the back of each and everyone of them. 'SWALK'? What does it mean?', she asks. I topped up both our mugs with some more coffee. 'It means it was sealed with a loving kiss', I say. 'And now I wonder.' I let the words hang in the air, allowing the silence to grow. 'I wonder', I repeat, 'if I've written my last letter to you or if I have a lifetime of letters still ahead of me.' And Geraldine placed the letter she was reading down on the table, and came over to me, and sat on my lap. And then she whispers in my ear, 'This is forever.' 

It's a long day, there is much talking done. She remarks that I had maintained my taste in terms of décor, but how could she know why? I never told her that story. I do now. I tell her everything. '...so, you see', I say, 'I didn't want everything. I didn't want nothing, either. I wanted... something that felt right. That was my hope, that the day would come when all the pieces fell into place and everything would feel right. That one day it just wouldn't be the place where I lived in and slept in, but a home. I hoped... I hoped it was with you.' Geraldine says she's sorry, I say no, it's ok. It was a lifetime ago now. It was almost as if it had happened to two different people. It's about how we move forward now that matters. She reads some more letters, and when she's satisfied, she goes out to the front and sits on the sofa. I follow her, and as I sit by her side, she lies down on the sofa, and rests her head on my legs. I ask her if she wants to go to the town and grab a late lunch. She says yes. This is a perfect moment - her looking up at me, and me looking deep into her eyes. I want to be here for all time, where each breath lasts a thousand lifetimes - that is where I long to be.

Minutes later, and we're both inside my car, driving down the road that would take us down to the town some miles away. It's hot out today, but the AC keeps the car cool. My hand's on the gear stick, and hers on top of mine. We're coming out of the road that leads from my house, and into the main intersection. I take my eyes off the road for a second to look at her, one single second, and I don't know what hits us, but the car is flying above the road, everything has frozen in time, it crawls to a stand still, seconds that seem to last eternities. We both leave trails of tears that hang like raindrops in the air. Our eyes never leave each other. Dear god, dear god, dear god. To die by your side is such an heavenly way to die.

Day Two hundred and sixty nine - Thirteen autumns and a widow

'Summer', I say, and she shakes her head again. 'No. No more subterfuge', she says, 'Geraldine. Me.' I'm still on the sofa, clutching a bottle of beer. I feel a deep ache in my heart, and I squeeze the bottle tight, hoping to break it, hoping to feel something else that would hurt more. It doesn't break. It doesn't hurt me. 'Can I sit?', Summer asks. Shit, I got to get myself together. Not 'Summer'. Geraldine. 'Sure', I say, scooching over to make some space her. I remove some tattered old books and magazines from the sofa, ruffle the cushions, and just like that, here we are, sitting close to one another again. The distance between us felt utterly sidereal once upon a time, but now... now the space between us is gone. In the quiet of this cold midsummer nigh, there is only the song of chance. I hand her my beer, asks if she wants a sip. She takes it, and drinks from it eagerly. I can tell she's nervous. And I am certain she can tell I am as well. We don't talk for a little while, we just sit and stare - at each other, at nothing, at the sky, at the woods. Besides everything I have inside me that I want to tell her, I don't know what to tell her. So, first things first. 'Summer'. Damn, again. I correct myself, 'Geraldine. I'm sorry. It's going to take some getting used to. You've always been 'Summer' to me, even through all this time. But Geraldine, how in heaven's name did you find me?'

And Geraldine smiled, a great big smile. She leaned back on the sofa, and let her long hair fall down the back. She fidgeted with it for a little bit, then sat straight, and crossed her legs in a perfect lotus. She scratched the side of her face, and breathed deeply. 'Okay. This started some time ago. Probably not even a year ago. Some miles down that road, there's a small town, right? Not much to look at, not much to do, but the general store is pretty decent.', she says. I nod 'yes' with my head. 'And you wouldn't have known this, because I never really told you this, but I grew up very close to here. So one day I'm visiting family, and I'm at this diner across the road from the general store having lunch with my aunt. And who do I see coming out?', she says, holding out her arms at me. 'My auntie thought I was crazy. I ducked under the table before you could see me. She got down to talk to me and demanded I tell her what was happening, and so I gave her a quick general description of you, and told her I'd only come out when she said you were gone. She looked outside and waited until you'd left, then told me it was safe to come out. Of course, she wanted to know the full story. And... you know, it's not that I didn't think of us, of what we had, I did - all the time. But certain parts I did not revisit. It would only bring me pain. And this was me, for the first time, really letting everything out. And I mean everything. I cried, we both cried, and then she told me if I wanted to know where you lived, she could easily find out.' She looks at me then, and her gaze tells me the answer to the question I was about to ask. 'I did. I really did. And soon enough, I knew just where it was you lived. But I... I didn't want to bother you. So I left, I went back home. It's funny, it never felt like home again. And I know why, I made sure of that. It felt so empty. So lifeless. The only sound that rang there were the lasts words you ever said to me : 'how I could've been yours, and you'd be mine... It could've been me and you until the end of time.', you know? I couldn't stop thinking about that. I couldn't. And I saw you everywhere I went, every place we'd been to together you were there. Not you, but an imprint of you. A ghost of you... of us.' She got up, and stood. Geraldine places her hands on her hips, and stares straight ahead into the endless sea of night.

When she turns to face me, I see tears slowly streaming down her face. She comes over, but this time sits down on the floor, looking up at me. She holds out her hands to me, and I reach out to her. And I'm not me, I do not exist, the walls come crumbling down. 'Isn't it fucked up', she said, ' how we never really got to know each other that well? There's so much about me I never told you.', and I nod at her, and say that there is also much about me I never told her about. 'I'm sorry', she says, her voice on the verge of cracking. 'I'm sorry too', I say. 'No, listen, please listen. I'm sorry I hurt you. I hurt me too.', she says. She lets go of my hands, and pulls up her sleeves, and I see an outline of crisscrossing scars on her arms. I can't help but reach out and touch her. 'Why?', I asked. She's breaking down. 'It's.. it's how I dealt with the pain. I had to feel something else. You know? I wanted something else to hurt more.' She goes silent for a few moments, and lowers her head. Then she lifts it back up, her hands back in mine. 'There was never anyone else. Never.', she says. And I... I don't know what to say. Did I think we'd ever see each other again? No. Did I ever dream about us meeting again? Yes. In my wildest dreams I imagined her running through these fields and into my arms. Countless times I sat right where I am looking at that horizon hoping for something that would never come. Until it did. 

It's late, and I'm not thinking straight. I'm thinking with my heart, instead of thinking with my head. I ask Geraldine if she's hungry, and she says she is. I go into the kitchen and fix us some grilled cheese sandwiches, and on the way out I take a couple of beers with us. We sit down on the sofa, and it's just us, the soft crunching of toasted bread, a sip from the beer, and the cicadas singing happily in the distance. I lean forward, and my back cracks and pops in a couple of places. I'm tired. As I stretch back on to the sofa, Geraldine places her arm around my neck, then nuzzles her head on my shoulder. 'Do you mind?', she asked. I do not. I welcome it. But it still hurts. She still hurts. We still hurt. There is something bigger than the hurt, though, something that never went away. Something that will never go away. I don't want this moment to end. I want us to be frozen forever like this, locked in space and time for a whisper that will last for all ages to come. There is something at work here. Something sacred, silent, unspoken. Our hands entwine. We fall into a fusillade of kisses, a barrage of caresses. It's instinct now, it's the animal coming out, it's a thirst that can't be quenched, a hunger that can't be slaked. I'm pulling up her top, and she's taking off my pants. Here we are, here I am. A martyr to this goddess in whose savage garden I shall forever dwell. Here I am, kneeling at the altar of our lady of the gilded cunt. Here I am, the risen madonna with her full breasts inviting me in. It's never ever been like this. This is... we devour each other. We pour ourselves into each other. We're on the floor, me on top of her. I thrust myself into her. With each thrust, words escape my mouth. I do not exist. I do not exist. I do not exist. I do not exist.

I do not exist.

I.

Do.

Not.

Exist.

Only you exist.

Day Two hundred and sixty eight - Crash premonition

From where I am to where I need to go - no, where I need to be - isn't very far. It's no more than some thirty miles from here, and because it's pretty dark out, and the road there will be somewhat tricky no navigate, I'm going to take my time getting there. Just to try and do something I'm not yet certain I'll be able to do. I shouldn't be doing it, a part of me thinks, I should have just let things be. I should have remained buried in the past, just a memory. And if when I get there, and I'm pushed away, then that'll be it, the final nail in the coffin, the end of the dream, and I'll have no one to blame but myself. I get in the car, and adjust the mirror. I feel old - older than I look. I feel... halved. Like the best part of me had been ripped away from me years ago. And it was, I made sure of that. This is all muscle memory now, my mind lies elsewhere : I turn the key, and rev up the engine. The car starts to move, slowly at first. I'll be driving slow, all these miles. I laugh, but I really want to cry - I remember a time when things were still good, when there was still life and love and possibility. There was music, and birdsong and poems. How did that old one go? 'The woods are lovely, dark and deep, and I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.', only now I'll be breaking a promise, not keep one. I promised myself I'd leave it well alone. But then came that day, that fateful day, that made me realize it wasn't over. It would never be over.

The car glides silently through the dark road. Lampposts are few and far between here, so I drive cautiously through these uneven roads. I know I'm not that far now, I know this area pretty well. I know it like the back of my hand, though I do confess that I've not been here for a long, long while. There, just past that curve up ahead, and then it's a lengthy strength down the road. I know that in places like these it's somewhat uncommon for a car to be driving a kind of abandoned road, but sometimes people do get lost. I'm getting more and more nervous. I have no idea what's going to happen. I have no idea if I'll even have the courage to get out of the car. But I have to do this. I have to know, once and for all. And whatever happens, I'll respect that decision. Forever.

I'm reaching the long stretch of the road, and I can see the house coming closer. My heart beats faster and faster. I'm close enough that I can now see it fully formed, a dimly lit house. I don't know who I am, who I'm supposed to be. Who am I? Who am I? I'm here. I stop the car, and stay inside. I turn off the lights, but the engine is still on. It purrs in the midsummer night. What am I doing here at this time of night? I feel a cold bead of sweat running down my back. What am I doing? I let my head rest on the wheel for a couple of minutes. I'm drumming up the courage to get out of the car. But right now, right now my legs weigh tons. Right now my heart weighs tons. I can't bring myself to look ahead, not now, not yet. I need to breathe. Inhale... exhale. I go through this mantra in my mind, something I had to learn to control my panic attacks. Inhale... exhale. I start to feel calmer. Inhale. This is the only way I'll know for sure. Exhale. I open the door, get out of the car and slam it shut. Inhale. Take one step, then the other, then another. Exhale. Keep on going. Inhale. I fight my legs wanting to turn from stone to jelly. Exhale. I can see him now. My beautiful man, how did I lose you? Here I am, standing in front of you, at long, long last. 'Summer', he says. And I shake my head, and say, 'No, Summer's gone. It's just... I'm just Geraldine.'

Day Two hundred and sixty seven - Summer's gone

It's been years since Summer, I started anew, moved to a new town. I'd had enough of living in the big city, and found myself yearning for a sort of simplicity that could not be so - no pun intended - simply achieved. I sold my place, the place where I lived in all my life, the place Summer detested. I don't think I really ever told her the story of that place, but it used to be my parent's house, and me and my brother grew up together there. We always lived there, though I was already preparing to leave the house and get a place for myself whenever I could. It would also give my kid brother much needed space for himself, he was now just entering his teenage years, an age a boy tends to need plenty of space. There was an almost ten year gap between us, he having been the unplanned sort of baby. But everyone here naturally loved welcomed him and loved him dearly. It was the worst day of my life when I got that call about the accident. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, me picking up the phone, listening to the voice that said that my family had been killed in a car crash, me dropping the phone on the floor, then me dropping to the floor. I was in a dream - a nightmare - and it all got worse. I had to identify their mangled bodies. I had to organize their funerals. I had to lay them to rest. And the I had to return to an empty house. No more would I be woken up by my mom opening up the blinds in our room. No more would I watch a football game with my dad. No more would I hear David's laughter again. For months their ghosts hung around the place, I saw them everywhere. From the corner of my eye, I'd see David running down the hallway, and my mom worriedly hurrying after him. When I sat on the sofa, my dad would sit by my side. Sometimes in the morning when the cold of light of day started filtering through the blinds, I swear I could see mom ready to open them up. One day I started removing everything from the place that reminded me of them, hoping that the ghosts would somehow leave. Oh, I didn't throw anything away - it's all neatly stacked in boxes in my uncle's garage. But the house was emptied even more, and in the end all that remained was the memories. I told Summer some things about this story, but never the whole of it, and she never quite understood how I lived in an empty house and slept in an empty room. Well, my current house is very similar to that one, very bare, bordering on the spartan. It's not self-imposed asceticism, rather it's me living my life knowing I have all I need.

But life isn't easy, not by a longshot. Picking up the pieces of one's life is rarely ever easy or pleasant, and in the intervening years I had to learn a lot about living alone again, about living in isolation almost. I live far off the beaten path, the closest town to where I live is miles away, and I only ever go there whenever I need to get something from the general store. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I manage to go there only maybe every other month or so. I have fresh running water I draw from a well, which helps a bit with the farming I've been trying to learn how to do - but so far it's been hopeless. Though I do have faith that in due time my farming skills will improve. One dreams of being self-sufficient, or at least moderately so, but these things do take their time. During my first few months here, I felt wracked with regret and guilt over having sold the place, I felt a bitter pang in my heart where once Summer lived, and I felt so god damn to call her, just to hear her voice one more time. But I resisted that temptation, even when one day, out of the blue, I get a text from her. 'Are you happy?', was all it said. I had a litany of words at the ready for the reply, but I never wrote them. Though to myself I confessed often that, no, I was not happy. What I am is content. With what I have. With what I don't have. With my life. It's peaceful, it's quiet, and though sometimes it hurts a lot, most times I do fine. Time passes, and I rarely ever think of Summer again. Summer is... No, Summer was. Just a memory, now. Just a memory.

It's the middle of the summer, and I'm not sleeping well. It's very hot out, and I usually find myself going to bed around six or seven, then I sleep for a few hours only. I'm up by nine or ten, and then I fix myself something to eat and grab a beer or two. I go outside, and sit on an old, busted up sofa I have out front. But tonight there's a cold wind blowing, and I go back inside to put on a jacket. Tonight it's just me and the stars, their flickering lights sending out interstellar morse code messages that will forever remain alien to us. It's impossible for me not to think about that day at the planetarium, but it doesn't hurt me anymore. I like to sit here alone, alone with my thoughts, and sometimes I turn on the radio and trawl the stations until I find something I like. I'm slowly twiddling the knob on the radio, searching for something, but nothing seems to catch my attention. Eventually, I just give up, and leave it playing something in the background. There's music on the station, but I'm just listening to cold wind whistling.

Where I live is so far removed from everything else, that I can literally spot a car coming this way from miles away. There's only the one road that leads here, and in the very few times I had a car drive past, it was just for it to make a u-turn and then drive down the other way down the road. Someone had taken a wrong turn, I thought. Especially at night, I can see as the lights weave in and around the winding road that leads there, and as the car approaches, the lights get bigger and nearer. A very short distance away from me, the car stops. I expect it to make that u-turn anytime soon, but no - the car remains there, the headlights still turned on. I hear the low purr of the motor, and then abruptly, the engine cuts off, and the lights go out. For long minutes there's only the darkness on the inside of the car, and me wondering if someone got really, really lost and now has no idea how to go back. I'm sitting ion the sofa, peeling an apple. It's a fairly sharp knife I'm holding, and I really do hope nothing weird is going to happen. I distinctly hear the sound of a door being opened, and then slammed shut. Then silence, broken by the steady crunch of someone walking on gravel. I start to see the shape of someone coming into my view. It's... will I be damned. It's Summer. She walks slowly towards me, coming clearer and clearer into view. Then here she is, standing before me in her full glory. 'Summer', I say. And she shakes her head, and says, 'No, Summer's gone. It's just... I'm just Geraldine.'

Day Two hundred and sixty six - The last day of summer

It's all we do these days - fight. We fight, we cry, we break up, we're back together again, and the cycle goes on. It's getting desperate between us, it's getting ugly, and lately whenever we fight, Summer accuses me of cheating on her. I'm not, and the accusations sting. The worst thing is, I know she loves me, I know I love her, but sometimes... sometimes it feels like she doesn't like me very much. And because sometimes people are likely to do desperate things to save their relationship, one day Summer proposes to me. We're at the planetarium, and while we wait for the show to begin, we sit down on the chairs and lean slightly back. It's cool inside, the ideal place to be to escape a very hot summer's day. This is some time after that whole pregnancy thing, something we never broached again. I ask Summer if she believes in things like past lives and reincarnation and all that stuff. She does not. She says I know she doesn't believe in any of that mumbo-jumbo. I know she doesn't. Then I tell her how sometimes I have these visions - almost like memories - of a me that isn't 'me', thousands of years ago, standing in some island somewhere, looking up at the wintry night sky, with my wife and children besides me, as we watch the Pleiades being loosed in the sky. 'Is it me, your wife? The woman who's with you?', Summer asks. I tell her the truth : I don't know. But I tell her more truth : I hope she is. And Summer sits in her chair, quiet and silent, deep in thought. I move my hand to the armrest beside her, and she squeezes it tightly. Just before the show begins, Summer looks at me and asks, 'Will you marry me?'.

Of course I say yes, of course we get married pretty quick, of course it didn't change anything, of course it saved nothing. The fighting continued. But there was a new dynamic to them now, we rarely have any of the shouting now. Now there are only long, sullen, drawn-out silences that last days at their best, and weeks at their worst. We will literally spend entire days without talking to each other, Summer wakes up early in the morning and she leaves to go to work, and I wake up a bit later. She's either leaving or already left by the time I'm out of the shower, and she never says goodbye. She comes home later and later, and I also start spending more time over at mine's. There's nothing going on between us anymore, we haven't had sex in ages, she doesn't even let me get close to her, almost as if my very touch disgusted her. We don't go out, we do nothing together, except for a few days a week when we share a bed. But it's a cold, lifeless bed we share. Sometimes when she's asleep, I sit on the bed and watch her sleep. There's so much I want to tell her, yet I cannot speak. I can't, I feel bound and gagged. I love her so much. But there's only one way this ends, I realize. We can't go back, we can't move forward - we're stuck on a loop, we're stuck on a rut. And I... I can't bring myself to go. I just can't. I'm not even entirely sure if I exist without her.

This is it. This is how it starts. This is how the world ends. This is how we begin the end. We're fighting again, god knows why. Actually, I know why. But that's for later. And again - Summer accuses me of cheating on her. Summer accuses me of the worst things she does best, because I know she has cheated on me, though I never told her anything. That's why we fight, it's the guilt eating away at her. As she's throws a barrage of abuse towards me, demanding to know if I was cheating on her, I calmly say, 'Can I ask you that question?'. She's taken aback, now, but doesn't go on the defensive, rather, she goes on the offensive. 'Oh, fuck you', she says, 'Why would I cheat on you?', and I'm still strangely calm as I deflect her bullets, it feels like I'm a thousand miles away though I'm still there. 'You tell me, Summer, why would you?', and Summer looks ready to throw something at me. 'I know you are cheating on me', I say. I do know. She's mad - she's angry. She asks if I'd been going through her computer or her phone, she asks if I'd been following her. 'No, Summer. I just happened to get out of work early one day and when I'm getting home I see you kissing some guy by the front door. Then you both went inside, care to tell me what you did next?'. Summer does throw something at me, I don't even know what, but it comes no way near me. 'You didn't have the decency to at least not fuck him in our bed?, I say with some pent-up anger behind those words. 'It's not 'our bed', it's my bed, and I do whatever the fuck I want to in my bed!', Summer screams at me. She comes towards me, balls her hands into fists, and bangs on my chest like a drum. Every blow hurts, every single one of it. Fortunately for me, my heart is hurting more. She beats hard, furiously, curses me, cries, I feel her slapping my face, and her sharp nails rake my flesh, leaving trails of blood where they bit. After a while, the adrenaline ebbs away from her, and she slumps down to the floor. I sit down beside her. 'Hold me', she says. I hold her. She asks me to forgive her. Of course I do. I'm such a sap, I forgive her once, I forgiver her twice, I forgive her thrice. It gets to a point where I'm thinking that she's fucking every guy that she looks at. It can't go on like this. I can't go on like this. I can't go on. I won't go on.

I filed for divorce some days later. There was no salvaging us. Hell, there wasn't an 'us' left to salvage. By the time Summer received her papers, we hadn't been talking for a while. Complete communication breakdown. There were many times when I found myself reaching for my phone, wanting to call her and her hear voice, or just to text her, but I always decided against it. That way madness lies, I thought. I had endured enough pain and misery to last me a hundred lifetimes, and now all I wanted was to move on, and move out, and move away from everything. I had to leave all of this behind, or else I'd find myself withering here. But Summer calls me, and we have a very civilized conversation about the world we live in and life in general. I tell her I still haven't returned the key to her apartment, but I was happy to mail it to her. Summer says I left something over at her place, and I say whatever it is is not really that important. She asks me to come over. I... this is the last time. I say ok, and make my way there. Before I leave, I make sure the key is with me, so I can hand it over to her. When I get there, I ring her apartment, and she buzzes me in. I go up that elevator again, and knock on her door. A couple of minutes later, Summer opens the door. She looks tired, and sad, and raggedy. Like all this had a taken a toll on her. Maybe it did. We say a very curt hello, and I reach for my keychain, and very methodically and very slowly, I remove it from the ring. I give it to her, she holds out her hand, and I place it on the palm of her hand. My fingers lightly brush her hand, that skin, my god, I'm almost on the edge, close to being tempted again. I put my hand on my pocket. 'Here', she said, handing me a manila envelope. I open it, it's the divorce papers, signed. It's now completely official. The dream is over. I sigh, a loud, sad sigh that echoes down the hallway. Then I look at her. She knows how heartbroken I am, she knows how much I still love her. I'm trying very hard to fight back tears. 'Don't look at me like that', Summer says, 'please don't look at me like that.' And I say, 'There's something I'll think about for the rest of my life, Summer. You know what that is?', and Summer doesn't try to fight the tears, she lets them flow freely. She shakes her head, mouths a silent 'no'. This is the last time I look at Summer. This is the last thing I tell Summer. 'I'll think about how I could've been yours, and you'd be mine... It could've been me and you until the end of time.'

Day Two hundred and sixty five - That summer, at home I had become the invisible boy

There's something terribly exciting about those first few months in a relationship, right? Everything seems possible, everything seems fresh, and even fighting was an attractive prospect because afterwards we'd always have angry make-up sex and everything would be great again. No matter wherever it was we went to, everything seemed new, everything was Hy-Brasil, and Lyonesse, and Avalon and Elvenhome. There was magic everywhere, there was possibility everywhere. And Summer's hope was contagious, I believed, I truly believed, that I had hit the mark. That we both had. Those first few months... man. We'd fuck all the time, we'd fuck everywhere. We couldn't get our hands off each other. We were so madly, deeply in love, moved, lifted, lifted higher, by a higher love. But do you know how sometimes you can precisely pinpoint the exact moment when everything starts to fall apart? 

Things had started to slow down. Of course nothing stays the way it is as in the beginning, that's obvious. But there was an abrupt drop-off in pretty much everything. Our relationship had been a very relaxed one, we were together whenever we wanted to, sometimes it'd be days without us being together, but there was never any pressure. What there was was a hunger for each other whenever we were together again, almost often at her place. I took Summer to my place not even a handful of times, I know she felt disappointed somehow. My house is far less glamorous than hers, verging on the drab, and I do not have rows of books and records. I sensed she never felt quite comfortable there, so we'd only go over to mine's if she suggested. Over time, though, there seemed to grow somewhat of  a distance between us. Well, not between me and her, but rather between her and me. I often felt that she was constantly pissed off at me for some unfathomable reason, and me broaching the subject would invariably end up with us fighting. And god, we fought for absolutely everything. And when I say 'we', I mean I was on the receiving end of a tirade of abuse. Anything and everything would trigger these fights - the way I sometimes chortled at some inane thing we were watching on the TV, or how loudly she thought I was breathing, or how my skin was itchy to her - you name it, we fought, time and time again we fought. Things get weird one day when I'm at her place, and we're ordering pizza. This isn't the sitting snug together on the sofa eating pizza, flirting with each other, abandoning the pizza halfway through to fuck on the floor. No, this is sad us, sitting each on one end of the sofa, while we nibble away at the poor pizza. We barely talk, we do not touch. It kills me that I don't even know why this has happened. When the door bell rings and it's the pizza guy, Summer tells me to gran her wallet and pay for the pizza. I grab it, walk to the door, and pay for the pizza. As I close the door behind me, clumsy me drops the wallet and all her documents and bank cards fly all over the floor. I lay the pizza on top of the table, she asks me if I need any help, nah, I say, let me pick up your cards from the floor. I'm picking them quickly and absent mindedly, but something catches my attention. I'm looking at her driver's license - I'd never seen it before. She looks different, younger. But that's not what tugs at me. No, I see her name. Who the hell is Geraldine?

And she says, 'It's me, silly, but no-one calls me Geraldine, not even my family.' I can safely say I am flabbergasted at this, and I ask her if her family called her Summer as well. She seems pissed off, a fight is in the horizon. She says bitingly, 'No, my fucking family does not call me Summer, they call me Birdy.' What? Who the hell are you? I'm lost for words, I can only manage to blurt out a weak 'Why did you tell me your name was Summer, then? Shall I call you Geraldine?', and oh boy, things go nuclear. 'No you may not call me Geraldine, you fucking idiot.' I stand there, confused, hurt. She sees the hurt in my eyes, she sees the breaking of my heart unfolding before her. Summer sits back on the sofa, and hugs her legs close to her chest. She's crying. There are rivers of tears coming out of Summer. Her tears are becoming a sea. I sit beside her, my head between my hands, and I am crying too. Save your tears, boy, more are coming your way, and soon. Summer beckons me closer to her, I hesitate. I'm still hurt. She holds out a hand for me to hold, I do so tentatively. She grabs it eagerly, she grabs it like she used to. She takes a big, deep breath, then says, some notes of despair in her voice, 'I'm late, you know.', she shakes her head and begins crying again. I ask her if she's pregnant, she shakes her head again, and looks at me. 'I hope not, I don't want to have children. Certainly not with you.'

I asked Summer why she would say that, did she hate me that much? She says no, she loves me, she says sorry for what she said, says she fucked everything up. She loves me, says she, but there's no love here, there's only a study in despair, my heart shattered and my soul rent. I'm getting up to leave, I want to walk away, I don't want to be here now, she yells at me. She says if I go that's it for us. It's up to me. There's such a chasm between us now, such an unreachable distance gulfing both our bodies. We are drifting away. That's the first time we ever broke up. Summer and I didn't talk again for about two weeks. I legitimately thought I'd never hear from her again. Then I get a text from her, she asks if we can just talk. We can, of course we can. She tells me to open the door, she's outside. She'd been sitting there mustering the courage to send the message. As soon as I open the door, I see her sitting on the floor, sullen. She looks tired and sad, like the light had fled from her eyes. I kneel before her, and wrap her in my arms. I can't escape her. I can not. She hugs me fiercely, and talks softly in my ear, 'I missed you. And I'm not pregnant. Sorry.'. We'd had some of the big talks, sure, but we'd never talked about kids, or moving in together, nothing of the sort. We just figured we'd cross those bridges when the time was right. We get back together, of course we do, but this creates a pattern that will last for a while : we fight, we break up, we make up, we fight, we break up, we make up and so on and so forth.

I'm... I feel I'm getting weaker. Tired. Like butter scraped over so much bread, it's running thin, my heart is running on empty, not empty of love for Summer, but emptied of strength and will to do this anymore. I'm exhausted of the bickering and the constant fighting. There's less and less of what makes us 'us', and sometimes it feels like we're not 'us anymore, we aren't the synecdoche we used to be, we're not parts of a whole, we're parts of a hole. But Summer pulls me closer, always, she brings me back, her siren song far too strong for me to resist. This goes on and on and on. I'm losing myself in you, Summer. I'm losing myself. I'm losing.

Day Two hundred and sixty four - Summer didn't change a thing

It's a few days later, and I'm back at Summer's. She had to go out of town on work, though we kept on talking all the time. Summer says she misses me - it's a feeling I've not experienced in a very long time, having someone missing me... and missing someone. And I miss Summer. Terribly so. She lets me know as soon as she's home, and asks me if I want to come over. Of course I do, I answer, and again I'm on my way there. Summer says she needs to take a shower and freshen up, but she'll be done by the time I arrive. When I get there, she buzzes me in, and that trip up on the lift seemed to take an age of ages. I press the buzzer by her door, and I can hear her running towards the door. She opens it slightly, and peers through the crack, then asks me to come in. As I walk in, I realize she's completely naked. She'd just gotten out of the shower, and didn't have the time to put her clothes on. I'm agog, my mouth is open wide, speechless. I want to get ion my knees, and adore at the altar of Summer. Her scent overwhelms me, she does smell like summer, but now there's something else, something animal, something wild, a musk that conspires to drive me crazy, it's the smell of desire, it's the smell of her, and I want to breathe it all in, forever and ever.

But Summer is looking at me, seeing me, laughing. No at me, but at how discomfited I am. Summer says I was going to be seeing her naked anyway, so why delay the inevitable? I'm goo, I'm jelly, I can't move, I shiver, I quiver, but not on the outside, on the inside my molecules shake and threaten to pull me apart at the seams. I'm seeing this from outside my body, almost, as if it's happening to someone else and I'm eavesdropping on them, but I finally move, I finally reach her, I finally feel her, I finally touch her, I finally hold her. My arms wrap around her, and we kiss, a storm of lips and tongue and fire and wetness that oozes from her. I taste it, she tastes it, we both do, it's in my fingers, in her tongue, in mine. And then I learn that Summer is very strong. Very nimble, very supple. She pulls be by my hand, and we're in the bedroom again. She pushes me down to the bed, tells me to stay laying as I am, stomach up, and soon she's positioning herself to sit on my mouth. I am hit like a runaway train by the scent of her nearness, it smells like a field of the freshest roses, it smells of a bull in heat, it smells of sex, and I devour her. There's a monsoon running out of her, she moans, and grabs ahold of the top of the bed tightly. I feel her drenching me, I feel it sluicing down my mouth and down my neck, and onto my chest. It's the sweetest juice I have ever tasted, it's mana the gods would kill for, it's the very essence of light, it's the taste of life itself. 

Summer eases herself down from where she'd sat down on top of me, and now sits on my chest, looking at me. 'That was good', she said. 'That was very good.', and I agreed - it was heaven. She never stops smiling. Never. Summer, the smiling woman. Wait, she says, I'm going to put on some music. Do you want to listen to something in particular?', she asks. I still feel her juices running down me, the smell of it drives me mad with desire. I tell her to put whatever she think's good. This music thing during sex would become almost like a ritual between us. She's still sitting on my chest, I feel how hot and wet she is, as she moves up and slowly on my chest. Then she jumps off the bed, goes to her computer and opens her music folder. She clicks away for a few moments, then dims the light in the room so that it becomes barely lit. I can hear music now, though it's not something I recognize. I see her slinking cat-like towards me, mischief in her smile. She's atop me now, again, and she feels like paradise. She leans down to kiss me, and we kiss for a long while. We want to take our time. Here there's no time. There's everything without a time. The music changes, and now the saddest dirge I ever heard is playing. No, not a dirge, it's something else, it's a declaration of love, an unbroken hallelujah. It speaks right to my soul, it pierces my heart, I want to cry, I want to live, I want to love, I want to fuck and I feel Summer sliding my cock inside her. What is this song? It's more than a song, it's a hymn, it's an antiphon, a paean to the both of us. Summer?, I ask, and she moves up and down to the beat of my heart. Summer, you have to stop, I say, I'm going to come. I don't want to, but right now I feel I'm going to explode. She intensifies the rhythm, staring down at me, her eyes wild. Yes, she says. Yes. My hands are square on her ass, and I squeeze it hard as I come inside her. The song is still playing, it's the closest I ever had to a religious experience, having sex to this song. 

She's still stop me, and I'm still - albeit in a very limp state - inside her. I hoist myself up on my elbows, I feel ashamed, I feel like I disappointed her, and I'm apologizing profusely. She lowers herself and rests her head on my chest, her long hair filling my immediate surroundings like a sleepy golden storm. Her arms wrap around me, under me, she holds on fast to me. 'Nate', she says, 'I love you'. God damn it, Summer. God damn it. 'I love you too', I say.

Day Two hundred and sixty three - Summer dying fast

But calling Summer was not an easy feat for me to accomplish, not by any stretch of the imagination. I struggled with that damned imposter syndrome, I questioned myself and her motives, I doubted, I feared, I hesitated, and I almost didn't call. But then a surge of courage gripped me and I found myself on the phone with her. We talk for a little bit - I'd been sat on the sofa all the while I was drumming up the guts, and I only got up when she picked up - and she said she wasn't feeling too well. I didn't press her on that, I actually thought that was her way of telling me that she didn't really want me to bother her. Then she says why don't I come over to her place, and we could maybe order something to eat. I feel like I'm in a dream, something is happening, but I don't know exactly what or why. I'm saying yes, of course I'm saying yes, and she's giving me her address. How soon can you be here, she asks, and I tell her I don't actually live that far from her, maybe less than half an hour away, what is happening, this can't be happening, she asks me to hurry, why?, I say I'm on my way.

In my rush to leave, I slam the door loudly behind me, a cacophony echoing down the hallway as I walk towards the elevator. Things start to sink in - I realize the absurdity of what I am about to do. But I cant' stop myself from going, I can't. There's an urgency to me, to my body, to the way I move. I'm running down the subway station stairs, whereas I'd usually just walk down, but my feet are burning, my groins are burning, there is a fire in me, and then I stop and wonder if this is it, if this is the time when I finally meet a psychopath who reels me in hook, line and sinker, and then kills me and chops up my body, and then - oh god - feeds my remains to stray dogs. I have a cold sweat running down my spine, my heart is beating a thousand miles an hour, and my balls, my good lord jesus, why are they hurting so much? What am I doing, I repeat to myself so many times. What am I doing? I'm standing in front of the building where she lives. I can still stop this, I assure myself. I can still quit while I'm ahead. I can give her some stupid excuse and maybe she'll never talk to me again. I'm pressing the button for her floor, and shortly thereafter she buzzes me in, and I'm going up to meet her. What. Am. I. Doing.

She's waiting for me by the door when I exit the elevator, and as I approach her she greets me warmly with a kiss on my cheek. Come in, she says. There's nothing I want more. I'm taken aback at how beautiful her place is - very neat, very organized, but also very packed. She has hundreds of books, and CDs and all that stuff, but everything is always in its right place. My old friend the imposter syndrome whispers in my ear I do not belong here. I'm tempted to believe him. Summer says she's got a good selection of wines - of course she does - and asks me what I was in the mood for. I almost make a stupid joke, but catch myself just in time. Anything's fine, I say, and she asks me if it's really anything, uh-oh, I say yes, anything, even haggis, and I make a face and she laughs. Let's order pizza, she suggests. Pizza it is. She tells me to wait for her in the living room while she places the order. I nod, and go and sit while she mills about. A few minutes later she joins me in her sofa, and sits cross-legged in a lotus-like position. She closes her eyes for a few moments, as if deep in meditation, then deftly catches her long hair in a pony tail. She looks at me, smiles, and says 'I'm so glad you came. I was beginning to think you wouldn't call me!', and a part of me is still shocked that I'm here at all, while another sits in awe of her. I regurgitate words, trying not to show her how nervous I feel. We spend some minutes in idle chat until the door rings, and it's the pizza delivery guy. I offer to pay for the pizza, she shoos me away, she was having none of it. After a few moments, here she is placing the pizza on top of the table. She comes back with a couple of bottles of wine, and glasses for us. This is going to end in tears.

The alcohol's leaving us quite inebriated, and I've relaxed a lot since I first arrived. I'm now making witty quips, and sharp remarks, as if I was born with the gift of the gab, but really this is just the booze talking. She laughs loud and often at what I say, and we are having a good time. We eat the pizza, and drink the two bottles of wine. She asks if she should open another one. Summer, if I drink one more bottle of wine, I will have to sleep on the floor because I won't be able to go back home. She says I don't have to sleep on the floor, I can sleep with her. On her bed. And then - god, how do these things happen? - we're kissing, and I feel how soft her skin is, I smell how amazing she smells, and I'm hard as a rock. She says we can't fuck. I say that's ok. Though my balls are going to explode. I'm on my period, she says. But I can give you a blowjob, she says. And then, clarity. The veil that the booze had placed around my head is slowly lifted. Summer, I say, and it's no lie, I didn't come here to have sex with you. I never even thought it would ever be on the cards. We don't have to do anything. But I want to, she says. So do I, I say. But are we... are we going to be together again?, I ask, and she says she hopes we do, she wants us to be together again. We're drunk. And if this goes on like this we'll be drunk in love. Summer, let me call a cab so I can go home. Stay, she says. Stay the night. Stay with me. Are you going to kill me, now that you got me drunk, and chope me up into little pieces and feed me to stray dogs? She laughs, and leads me to her bedroom. Can we go to sleep, she asks? She shimmies out of her clothes, and sits barely clothed on the side of her bed. She stays silent for a few minutes, and then gets up and comes over to where I am and kisses me. Her kisses taste great. Get undressed, she says, I don't have pyjamas for you, but we'll sort out that later. Now please excuse me, I have to go to the toilet. Should I go to bed and wait for you, then, I ask, like a nincompoop. Of course, she says, I'll join you soon. 

I'm... my head's swimming. It's not just the alcohol, it's the giddiness of all of this that's happened tonight. I can barely think straight. Now it's me who's down to my underwear, sitting on the side of her bed. I'm going to hyperventilate. No, stop. Take a deep breath. And another. And another. No good. The alcohol swims all the way up to my head. Aw jeez, I hope I don't throw up. I lie flat on the bed, alone in the dark. I close my eyes, and think of Summer, though she's just right beside me almost. Am I smiling? God, I am. The door gently clicks shut, and I feel lightweight Summer lying down close to me. I feel her hands caressing my arms, running down the knots on my back. Her fingernails are tracing patterns on my flesh, etching goosebumps on my skin. I let out a cry in the night, delicate and intimate, a hosanna to all the pain and misery that was to come.

Day Two hundred and sixty two - Sketch for summer

I first met Summer some months back, she and I used to go to the same gym. She's the kind of girl everyone notices, tall, lean, and extremely blonde. I'm pretty sure she's the blondest person I've ever seen. Sometimes it even seemed her hair was more golden than blonde, it shone in the truest sense of the word. She was the kind of girl that would just come to the gym, do her thing for an hour or two, and then leave. I've never seen her talking to anyone, though plenty of people certainly tried to talk to her. As for me, well, I did my level best not to notice her - at least in the sense that I wouldn't be caught staring at her or something like that. She was obviously way out of my league, so I stayed well out of her way. But then... then one day I caught her staring at me. Well, at first I thought she was staring past me, maybe some guy had caught her eye and I just so happened to be in her field of vision. I shrugged it away, but soon I saw her coming directly my way. I was on the stationary bike, but I still thought she was just going to talk to someone else. I stare straight ahead, as she approaches, and she stops in front of me and says something i can't understand. Oh god, was my hair sticking up in a weird way and she's here to tell me about my weird hair? Do I have a booger stuck in my face? What, what could it be? I take out my ear buds, and apologize, could she repeat what she said, please?

And she asks me if I was crying. I stop the pedals, and brush of the sweat from my face. Then I look at her - all angelic like, and she looks like summer, and she smells like summer. 'What do you mean?', I ask. Then a pained look comes across her face, as if suddenly she was certain that she had said the wrong thing. She hadn't. I'm still looking at her, trying not to make a fool out of myself. Then I say, 'Yes. Yes, I was. How did you notice?', and now I see her usual self return, warm and bubbly and - yes - summery. She says, 'To be fair I think pretty much everyone here did...', which left me wondering if I had been making faces, or maybe there had been loud sobbing. 'What I mean to say', she added, laying a hand on top of mine, it's driving me crazy, absolutely crazy, I've never felt skin so soft before, I am entirely certain I shall never wash that hand again, 'is that you have an aura about you. Like there's a deep sadness inside, and sometimes it comes out and you just... cry?' And she wasn't wrong, I found out early on when I started to come to the gym, that me profusely sweating could mask the tears. Ah, the faculties of a broken heart. It takes a long time to heal. And I healed... this way. Well, this way too. And so I explained to her why, indeed, she was right, I was crying. I'm off the bike by now, and I'm standing close to her. That smell is killing me. I feel like I smell like a rotting donkey, and she smells of heaven. And then she asks me why I was crying, why I cry, and I shake my head and tell her that it's a long story. She says she understands, then says 'My name's Summer', and of course it is. Why would it be anything else? I stutter momentarily, nervous, anxious, why? 'I-I.. My name's Nathaniel. Nathan. Nate. Just.. just Nate.'

Then I don't see her for a while, for a few weeks at least. I thought she'd left the gym, or started coming at a different time so she could avoid me - whatever. I found myself going at different times as well, but I never caught sight of her. And then she's there again. Of course I think she won't remember me, of course I think it was just a one-off conversation we'd had. But she sees me, and waves at me, all smiles. Again, I see her walking my away, again, I feel that burning imposter syndrome because it can't be me she's coming over to talk to, it has to be someone else. But it's, it's me. 'Just Nate', she says, laughing. 'How have you been?', and I tell her I'm good, and I ask her if something had happened to her, because I hadn't seen her around. She cocks her head, and smiles, then says 'Why? Were you worried about me?', and the truth is yes, yes I was. I tell her just that. Why is she being so nice to me? Again she places her hand of me, I don't want her to ever take it off. She has this constant smile on her face, so much so that the corners of her mouth have turned up, incising her smile even further in her face. She's taking out her phone, and then she says, 'Here, give me your number.' I blurt it out, as if in a fever dream. She gives me her number too. Tells me to call her later today. I can't speak, words are dying before they can be formed. Call me, she said, call me, she repeated. I said I would. I did. I called her. 

Day Two hundred and sixty one - The ballað of the broken birdie records

When I was very young, my mother nicknamed me 'birdy'. I used to think that if I flapped my arms real hard, then I would be able to fly. My mother humoured me, and encouraged my fantasies, until the day I decided to jump off the top of the garage. I fell bad, and broke my arm. When we were in the hospital, and the doctor had wrapped my broken arm in  a plaster cast, my mother was in tears, and she told me that now that her birdy had broken her wing, she wouldn't be able to fly anymore. She made me promise to her that I'd never pull a stunt like that. 'I promise, mommy', I said. 'Cross my heart and hope to die', I added. And I never did, never again. But the nickname stuck. So those who've known me long enough, will call me Birdy. Because I never, ever liked my name - and the only reason I still haven't changed it is because it's my late grandmother's name - she died when my mother was very young, and this is her way to homage her. This way, she said, my grandmother would live on through me.

We lived up north when I was born, and we stayed there until my mom got a real good job offer. So good, in fact, that after having a conversation with my dad about it, it was decided that we'd be moving down south. It helped, I guess, that my father was between jobs, and the city we would be moving to had much better prospects. It was sad, in a sense, to leave this quiet life we were used to living. I had doubts and fears about us being able to adapt to the bustle of the big city, but we fit in well enough and built out life there. When we moved south, birdy became a name only my family called. I decided to reinvent myself. I'd be someone else. Someone new. Something I'd do very often, mind you. No one got to know the real me that way. Just the ideal version of myself I'd fashion for whatever circumstance. In high school I didn't allow anyone to call be my my name, rather, everyone knew me as Moon Unit. Yeah, I got that from dad - he's a huge Zappa fan. When I went to college abroad, I was someone else different again. Not just in my mindset, not only in the way I wore my clothes, but also in terms of attitudes, and demeanor. I wanted to experiment, to understand how people think, how and why they react the way they do. I wanted to learn as much as possible, to grow, and also.. to have fun. And my time as the pious, chaste Sister Ray was very fun indeed. Very, very fun.

But then, ah, then there are the vagaries of adulthood, and pursuing a career in the publishing world. I began by working at a rather small one, first doing some very dreary proofreading for a couple of years, then being promoted to assistant editor. I was eventually headhunted by one of the big publishers, who tempted me away with a big paycheck, and also a full editor. I wasn't terribly excited about editing children's books, though, and I had my eyes set on bigger things. I had the time, the will, and the patience - I would get there. Oh, there was also the added bonus that this was the publisher that was putting out his books, him, the reclusive, secretive writer who'd been putting out very well reviewed books.... and no one seemed to know who he was. There wasn't even a picture of him in any of his books. Just a name. I actually assumed that this was an alias for someone else, but one Christmas party his editor and me were having a semi-drunken conversation, and he'd confided that I should make sure to visit his office in early January. I asked him why, he looked this way and the other, then pulled me close to him. He tapped the side of his nose and said that he would be coming to the office in person to deliver the final draft of the new novel. Oh boy, was I giddy! I couldn't wait until the day came and I finally got to meet this mystery guy. 

It's almost mid January, and I still have no idea if Oscar pranked me. Maybe he somehow learned that I liked his books, and wanted to punk the newbie? But then I get an email from him, telling me to run to his office. It's time. He's here. I go out of my office, and walk hurriedly down the hallway to where Oscar's office is. There is a delivery guy moving that way as well, and as I pass him, I sort of bump into him. I hurry along, look back and say sorry to the guy, he waves at me saying that it's ok. So where's the guy, I ask Oscar, as soon as I step inside his office. He's sitting down in his leather chair, then looks at his watch and says he should be arriving any moment. There's a knock on the door, it's slightly ajar, and I look behind to see the delivery guy standing there, holding a Manila envelope that seems to be tightly packed. Probably just another unsolicited pitch. We get tons of those every day. Oscar gets up, beams at the delivery guy. 'Ah, there you are', he says, wrapping the guy in a warm embrace. 'It's here, Oscar, it's finally here!', the delivery guy says. I'm lost, who the hell is this guy? 'Come here, my boy', Oscar said, 'Let me introduce you to one of our very best and brightest young editors. I hear she's a bit of a fan...', he said in a sing song voice. He held out his hand, and said 'Hi, it's so good to meet you!', and it's such a calm and peaceful voice that I am disarmed instantly. I see my hand reaching out to his in slow motion, and I shake it - vigorously so. 'My name is Geraldine', I finally say.

Day Two hundred and sixty - To build a home

There was a scandal. Of course there was a scandal. The headlines proclaimed my sentence with glee : 'Famous writer caught cheating on fiancée', a never-ending parade of my crimes and sins displayed on every newsstand, on the TV, and on the radio. My foibles made me the talk of the town for a while, and it made my decision to leave that much easier. Or that less hard, I suppose. The movie adaptations had provided me with enough 'fuck you' money that I could just up and disappear, and that's what I did. The only person who knew that I was leaving was my agent, I was still under contract for a couple more novels, but now the publisher was debating whether or not they'd release me from the contract, or hold on to me. To be honest, I was fine either way. It took me a couple of months to find the right place - all I knew is that I wanted to get as far away from the city as possible. I spoke to a number of realtors, until one took me to this property that was for sale, and well within my budget. But... it was just the property. No housing, not yet. Therein lie a great challenge. Therein lie a great opportunity. One I embraced fully. I sold the apartment, and bought a small RV - that would be my house for the next few months. Then I started putting in the orders for the construction materials, and very slowly I began the great project of building my dream home. 

It took time, a long time, but I eventually got it in shipshape. It was almost perfect, but there was something missing. I had an office just for my writing - oh, I never stopped, and whether or not I'd ever be published again was not a care I had. I wrote the 'Summer' stories there, and I'd never felt so good, so free, as I did then. There's a rocking chair on the porch, and I can often be found there when I'm not working. Usually, reading, though sometimes I do have to take the odd phone call as well. It just might be my favourite place in the house. When I sit there, I can see an ocean of green stretching far as the eye can see, the only sound the soft sighing of the wind and the rustle of leaves. This is peace, the peace I'd always craved. This is the house where I live in. This is the house where I feel alone. Something is missing. No, not something, someone's missing.

Just before I left, me and Eleanor met up to have a talk. She'd given me time and space to deal with the fallout of what had happened, and I always appreciated her for it. I told her I was leaving, and did not intend to return. I was tired of hurting people. And though I knew that I might be hurting her, I had to leave. She asked me to stay. I couldn't, I couldn't. I wanted to, I wanted to stay and try and live and learn and grow with her. But someone would get hurt. I didn't want that. Though it pained me greatly, I left. I regretted that decision ever since, but I've always hoped that she'd find the happiness she deserves - I don' care about my own, but hers I did. I often think of her, we were still so young when we first met. Not even in our mid-twenties, but both of us already so goddamn cocksure of ourselves. Maybe had that arrogance we both shared been tamed... maybe. Then one day something unexpected happened. I'm sitting on the front porch steps, looking at the sky as dusk descends and the last light of the sun fades from view. I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket. I take it out and as soon as I look at the screen I see Elle's name. My heart beats faster. I open the message. She says that she has to know if I want her or not, if I love her or not. Of course I do. She says she's ready to board a train that will take her to the closest town to where I live. She's going to get in, and make her way to the train station, where she will be waiting for me. She says if I don't show up, she'll know once and for all, and she'll close the door on us for good. I read that text over and over again, I can't stop reading it. I have a decision to make. 

It's well past midnight now, I'm still in that porch reading her message. The sky has gone completely dark, dotted with stars above me. I see a vision of myself here with Eleanor and a child - a little girl - and we all are sitting here staring at the same sky, looking at the constellations above, seeing the Pleiades as they streak majestically across the winter sky. It sings an anthem to me, an anthem to dusk, an anthem to her embrace. I can't go. I must go. I can't go. I'm faced with a lifetime of emptiness or with the uncertainty of the unknown. I put the phone back on my pocket, and go inside the house. I lock the door behind me, and a chill courses through me. I jump in the shower to wash the day's grime away, then go to bed. I feel tired, and alone. I feel low and worthless. I go to sleep, and dream about Eleanor.

It's the next day, and it's close to dinner time. I'm sitting in the porch again, reading her message again. I smile as I read, then put the phone away. I know I made the right decision. I know. As I sit there, in the warm summer evening, welcoming nightfall and my friends the stars, a mild breeze blows past me, filling me with life. I lean down on the porch, looking up. My eyes meet Eleanor's, who was bending down looking at me with the greatest smile I've ever seen. She's left a couple of mugs filled with sweet iced tea for us to drink on the kitchen windowsill, and I jump to my feet to kiss her and smell her and love her. We grab the drinks, and go and sit down on the rocking chair, her sitting lithely across my lap. I hold her close, hold her fast. I'm never letting go. Never, ever.

We talk through the night, something we really hadn't done before. We talk about so much. I tell her stories about myself no one got to hear before. I put my heart in her hands, and she puts hers on mine. I missed her, I missed her smell. She missed me too, she says. I could feel it. We watch the sun rise, the first pink rays of light reaching towards out distant fingertips. We are sleepy now, and happy. Elle puts her head against my shoulder, and then we both get up to go to bed. We fall down on the bed, and lay side by side looking at each other. I started humming a song, though I was far to sleepy to remember all the words. She joined me in the humming, our disharmonious melody lulling us to sleep. I kissed her and she sang to me 'So can you understand why I want a daughter while I'm still young?'. 

Day Two hundred and fifty nine - One more chance

It was a relief to finally deliver the final draft of 'How it ends', it had been polished as much as  I could, and my editor was quite pleased with it. It didn't sell terribly well, though it was well reviewed. I got a decent chunk of change from it, there was some talks about a movie option, I had my agent buzzed about it, but it went nowhere. No, the one that put me on the map came a year or so later. I'd decided to tell a story vaguely inspired in my own story with Eleanor, and then spun it into a trilogy. Clever me, I got to tell pretty much the same story over three books, but all of them from different perspectives. That was the million seller. That was the one that got movies made out of. Everyone knows by heart the opening line of the book - and the movie. 'Didn't we say we had a deal?', says a sultry voice, invitingly. I wrote those books like a man possessed, over the course of a few months. Everything seemed to be going my way. I was now well-off, I'd met and got engaged to Geraldine, and now, as we celebrate the release of a new edition of the books, complete with my manuscripts, I feel like I'm taking a well deserved victory lap. There's parties and autograph sessions and my ego gets massaged everywhere I go. What could go wrong, I wondered? And then I met Eleanor again.

I was doing a signing in one of the big bookstores, and I'd signed so many of the damned things, that my wrist was threatening to explode, and the worst migraine I veer had decided to inflict itself upon me. I'm sitting down at a table, and a winding queue of people steadily drop their books in front of me, I ask them if they want any dedication, some do, some don't, I sign the books, and rinse and repeat. After a while I stop noticing faces. It all becomes a blur. But I can smell her even before I'm aware it's her standing in front of me. I never forgot the scent of her perfume mingled with her flesh. She drops the book in front of me, our eyes lock. I'm feeling nervous now. I motion at the person responsible for the signing to come over, and tell him that I need to take a break, could he please let the people who are still in line wait a bit longer? That's a good man, I say, patting him on the back. So, Eleanor. Jesus. I ask her if she has the time for a cup of coffee, she says sure. We go to a café just across the road, and sit by the window. I'm actually hungry, so I order a grilled cheese sandwich as well. Eleanor says she's fine, the coffee will do. While we wait, she leans forward, puts her elbows on top of the table and steeples her fingers. She looks at me with a smile that would frighten a great white shark, and asks how I've been.

I'm studying her before I reply. As I look at her - she'd somehow gotten even more beautiful - my eyes caught her fingers, still steepled. No ring. I wonder. I don't reply immediately, and because I don't, she presses on. She was studying me as well. I had my hand laid out on the top of the table, and of course she noticed my ring. She's circling me, readying herself to pounce. She wants to savor the kill. 'I heard you got engaged', she said. I twirl the ring around my finger, still looking deep in her eyes. Shaking my head, I say 'We actually got married a while ago. A very discreet affair, only close friends and family, and nobody knew.' I'm still twirling the ring, a bead of sweat running down my spine. Eleanor looks... hurt. But she waves it away, and laughs that soul-saving laughter of hers. Then she unsteeples her fingers, waves her hands at me, and tells me that she'd called off her engagement a while back. I ask why, what happened, and she says it's what always happens. One day one or both of them realized that the emotions were dead, and they both went their own way. Undaunted, I ask her if there had been any other underlying motive. Somehow, when she told the story of what happened, I felt that there had been something missing. 'I thought the guy was perfect for you', I said. 'At least that's what you told me, some years ago'. Eleanor reached over to grab a piece of the grilled cheese sandwich, took a bite, then rolled her eyes. 'Oh, that is good', she says. She chews the food unhurriedly, and then takes a big sip from her coffee. The way she looks at me, it's killing me. Then she says, 'He was perfect, in his own way he was perfect. But there was something he wasn't. He wasn't you. And I never forgot you, nor that all too brief time we spent together. But it looks like we can't ever get the timing right, can we?'.

I have to go back, I tell her. I'd been away for too long as it is. But I also tell her that later that day I'd be at a party hosted by the publisher, and I gave her the address. I also did something then for the first time, I gave her my phone number, and she gave me hers. Come, I said. It will be good, I said. We can talk some more, I said. Let me finish the signing, and then we'll continue, I said. 'No promises', she said. 'But yeah, I understand that you're busy now, though you still haven't signed my book.' We laugh, and I sign her book. I leave an inscription inside, and ask Eleanor to read it only when she gets home. I hope she does. We walk back to the bookstore, and I kiss her on the cheek, saying I hope to see her again later. She smiles, winks, then turns her back and goes. I go back in, finish the signing, and by the time it ends I'm devastated. It's time to go home now, take a shower, and get ready for the event. 

The party wasn't as small and intimate as I'd hoped it would be, there are far too many people here, it's far too noisy, I can't even hear myself think. I'm on edge, and I could use a drink. A girl walks by holding a tray with champagne glasses, I take one and down it. My stomach is churning. People talk to me, and it barely registers. I smile, I wave, I take pictures with people I'd never seen before, and probably never will again. There's a sea of people between me and the door, I find my eyes darting all over the place, looking, scanning, searching. Where is she? I see Geraldine talking to a circle of people, I hear their laughter, their shrieking shrill laughter. And then the sea of people begins to part, and I see her in a red dress walking towards me. My heart skips a beat. As she walks through the crowd, I can't take my eyes off of her. I can't. And I dread what's about to happen. Ah, distinctly I feel her perfume as she inches closer. I am made of stone, Medusa turned me into a living statue, I can not move. I am transfixed by the beauty of her. And as she finally gets to where I am, of course I see Geraldine making her way to me. Fuck. She moves fast, and is besides us in moments. 'And this is...?', Geraldine asks, taking her in. I can tell she is impressed, and probably feels a little bit threatened. And I introduce Eleanor to her, which leaves her standing with her mouth wide open in shock. 'Holy shit', says she, she who never, ever swears, 'THE Eleanor?', and then shock gives way to confusion gives way to a quiet, seething rage. Something seems to be happening between them, the air is electric, I've never seen Gerry like this. But Elle, god fucking bless her, she quickly diffuses it, gives her a hug, and tells her how nice it is to meet her. For a second or two, there was some uncertainty about how things would pan out, but all was well. I'm whisked away by someone from the publisher, and I leave them both alone for a while. When I get back they're chatting away like if they'd known each other for a long time, laughing at some private joke I was not privy to. I join them, and soon it's Geraldine who's spirited away to go talk to some other circle of interchangeable people who all look the same.

'You seemed to get along well', I said to Eleanor. She laughed airily, and said 'Darling, we said empty, polite words, and laughed at a rude joke she'd told. She probably hated me.' I was intrigued. 'Do you hate her', I ask Eleanor, as I swipe to glasses and champagne, and hand one over to her. She turns her head like a hawk, and spots her immediately across the room. She looks at her for a few moments, then looks back at me. 'No. I don't hate her. She is very pretty, though. But I don't hate her.' We talk for a few moments, though the din seems to be getting louder. I have to lean close to her and speak directly to her ear, and she has to get on tiptoes to reply. I asked her if she'd read the inscription on the book when she got home. She said she read it as soon as she left. She said she couldn't wait. She said she knew what I'd written, deep in her heart she knew. I sigh. Maybe it was a bit of a loud sigh, because just then the noise seems to die down a little. We both look at the opposite end of the room, where Gerry entertains either the same or yet another circle of sycophants. Eleanor turns to me and says, 'She's perfect', and I nod in agreement. 'She is perfect', I repeat. I turn to her now, look deeply into her dark eyes, and say the words I was afraid to say, 'But there is something she isn't. She isn't you'.

What happens next I can't properly explain. There is a moment of silence between us, then Eleanor asks me to wait for her for a little bit. I wait, after a few minutes she returns. She looks at me, and says nothing, but starts moving away from me. It's as if she's leading me on somewhere. She is, she is leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, so to speak. I'm following her. I follow. I will follow. Where she's taking me, I do not know. I can't go on. I must go on. I'm - somehow - inside a room with her. It's full of other's peoples coats. We brush them all away, and they fall to the floor. I'm unzipping her dress, kissing her, holding her. I feel alive for the first time in years. We fall on the bed, I'm inside her, under her, over her, as she pulls me into her. I can't stop, I can't, we can't, we are fucking, fucking again, fucking everything up again. I have no idea how long we've been there, I don't know if it's minutes or hours or days or weeks, all I know is that time stands still, it's time without a time, it's everything without a time, and I wish this moment never ends. But of course it does, in the only predictable way, with Gerry walking in on us, and I don't even offer her an excuse, I don't try to say that this wasn't what it looked like, because it did, it did, it did, and it was glorious. Gerry shouts and screams, and then I feel her nails raking my naked flesh, gouging me deeply. She is shaking me, I say nothing, I'm somewhere else. I hear her telling Eleanor to get dressed and get out, my eyes follow her the whole damn time. Elle leaves, and looks at me. I look at her, and Gerry slaps me in the face - I fall down on the bed, my limp dick flapping as I tumble. There's a crowd gathered outside the door now, eager to see this living portrait of the artist as a beaten and broken thing. Let them drink it in. Let them savour the sight. This is the grand finale, the crescendo of demise. This is the happy ending where the bad guy goes down and dies. This is the end with me on my knees and wondering why? Cross my heart, hope to die - It's my own cheating heart that makes me cry.