It's a curt, small text she sends me first, asking me if we can talk. I try to play it coy and ask her what there is to talk about. She changes tactics and asks me if I want to talk to her, and of course I do. I relent, and say yes. She asks me where I live, and isn't that fucked up right there? We never even talked about that, she never did come here in the first place. I feel like I'm just someone who's making an uncredited cameo appearance in someone else's show. I text her my address, and soon enough she's ringing the bell. I buzz her up, and she raps quietly at my door, almost imperceptibly. When I open the door, and I see her, my heart sinks, my knees go weak. But I compose myself and say a rather aloof hello to her. I'm trying my level best not to show her how hurt I am. Not sure if I'm succeeding. We say nothing for a few moments, and then she leans against the side of the doorway, looking at me sideways. I can see the sadness in her eyes. She asks me if she can come in. I, too, am leaning against the other side of the doorway, my arms folded defensively. There's a part of me that wants to tell her no, that whatever she has to say can be said right here where we stand. I let her in, and as soon as she comes in, she stops dead in her tracks. 'Wow', she said, 'your place is nothing like I imagined it.', and I know full well why she says that. She does a full 360º sweep of my place, taking all the assorted toys and action figures I'd accumulated - I've been an avid collector ever since I was a child, and I still have all my childhood toys. 'There are so many of them.', she says, maybe slightly awestruck. 'I didn't know you could have so many toys.', she says as she walks towards one of the shelves. I do want to tell her to be quite careful, I have some pretty expensive pieces - but I say nothing. I'm not sure if she's more puzzled than really just out of sorts, because she really wasn't expecting to see all this. But there's tenderness in her voice when she says 'It's like a museum.', and I nod and I agree, and I fight the urge to tell her that's it also become a mausoleum. We go and sit down on the sofa.
Before she delves into the talk proper, she says 'I... I'm sorry, I'm distracted. Why do you have so many of them?', and this question irritates me slightly. I ask her if she came here to judge me. She shakes her head, says no. Only she'd never met anyone who collected toys. I tell her it's always been my hobby, I like collecting things, and playing with them, and then displaying them. I tell her about the rituals I have whenever I get a new piece - and how sometimes it means reshuffling a very large part of my collection so that I find the ideal place to fit it in. I tell her how eventually I moved to having these glass displays so it made it easier to keep them as clean and dust-free as possible. This bemuses her, she looks bewildered at all this. And it disheartens me, I feel like I'm being weighed, and measured, and I've been found wanting. Ess looks about her, then she points at one particular toy. 'That one, that big orange one. Who is he and why do you have like six different versions of him?' I look at where she's pointing, and smile. 'That one's my favourite. It's called Predaking - he's five different robots that transform into a really big one. Come, ' I say, holding out my hand to hers, 'and I'll tell you why he's my favourite.' We get up from the sofa, and walk up to the display. 'Well, you did ask for it.', I say sheepishly. 'See that one there? That was my very first. I had to save up my allowance for a long time to get each individual one. And the worst bit was that I only managed to get four of them - the other one was never for sale anywhere. I'd almost given up on it, but then one day my dad got home and said he had something for me. He handed me a box, all wrapped up, and when I opened it and saw what it was, I couldn't stop crying. I hugged him and thanked him, and we raced to my bedroom to do the final assembly. Then that one, that's a more modern version of the original one, it was a reissue from a few years back. Limited edition, used the original molds. The other ones are what we call 'third parties' - they're not official, but they're very idealized versions of the toys, more detail, larger in scale, loads of accessories. Pretty damn expensive, though.' And all the while I talked, she was transfixed, hanging on to my every word. She doesn't speak, until she does, and says 'When we met, I was seeing someone else.'
We sit down, and she lets it all out. There's sorrow in her voice, and maybe shame, but she tells me how she'd been with this guy for a few years, and it was... it was just ok. She felt like she'd resigned to that idea, that that was as good as it was going to get for her. She liked him, he was nice, and he liked her too. But it wasn't something deep. Fond, but not in love. And she then tells me that a couple of days after we'd last been together, she found out she was pregnant. 'Don't worry, it wasn't yours.', she says, and I'm not entirely sure whether to feel relieved or not. 'Some time later I suffered a miscarriage.', she says, and I lay my hand on hers. I had missed her skin. She doesn't push it away, rather, she puts her other hand on top of mine. 'There was just too much going on in my life. Something had to give. And I... I wanted to try and make things work with him, but it became impossible. I stopped being there. You know? I was there in body only.' I get up, and pace for a bit. I know, deep down I know, that I would have understood any of this she'd just told me, if she had reached out to me. I'm no stranger to pain and loss, I would have been fine... eventually. 'What made you reach out to me now?', I ask her. 'I don't know,' she shrugs, 'it just felt like the time was right.'
Ess stays with me for the next few days, I had some time off that was overdue, so I was able to spend time with her. There was much to be talked, and we agree on principle to try and see where this leads us. We're both willing to try, though it's not without its hiccups. We're out and about one morning when we approach a church and I feel this urge to propose to her then and there. I had never really considered getting married before, not to anyone, and why this happens now I can't rightly say. I'm almost ready to get down on my knees, when we both stop and stare straight ahead. There's a girl coming our way, and we both look at each other, and feel like we know her. Even from a distance, we can see she's distraught. She stares as well, though it's in our direction, it's not at us. She moves somewhat erratically, it seems, as if chasing something that cannot be seen. A few feet away from us, she's by a stairway, and I swear I could see - just for the briefest of moments - someone up the stairs, waving at her. We both saw it. But there was no one there. She goes up the stairs, and vanishes inside. 'What was that all about?', Ess muses, and I say I don't know, but there was something weird and heavy going on. For whatever reason, we linger for a while, and we notice the sudden drop in temperature. It's getting really cold now, a chill filling the air. We feel it run up our spines, and draw closer to one another. I hold her tight, and we kiss. As we kiss, the girl from before comes out of the church, she seems different now. Less haunted, more at peace. I feel something cold fall on my face, and I think it's starting to rain. We both look up, and it's not rain that's falling. All around us snowflakes fall, and they feel like a kiss.
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