'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.
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