A Mahogany Bench

The park was cold and empty, but I still thought it would be a greater comfort than my room in my parent's house, where they would glance at me accusingly as I tumbled up the stairs. My friend Sian was with me, and much less drunk than I was, which would not have been too difficult. After a treacherous five minute walk out of the taxi and towards the park's entrance, we arrive at Sian's favorite childhood spot: a mahogany bench. The seats are red and probably filthy, and when we sit down on them, Sian has puts his head on my shoulder.

“Gosh, I love this park. I can't believe you've never been here. Just breathe in this air, it's what air should be.” 

“Hm.” I look around, trying to imagine a smaller Sian balancing on a seesaw, twisting himself in the long swings, kicking the sand in the sand box. 

“Important things always happen here. All my birthdays were at this park. I opened my college acceptance letter at this park. My parents got their vows renewed at this park.” I am only half listening to him, uneasy in this new place so known to him but unknown to me, each foot of land enchanted by his presence over the years. I strive to feel the solace he associates with this park, but I can't find that comfort-induced warmth anywhere recently.

I hadn't expected coming home from college this winter to be so difficult, and in most ways it wasn't, but every small thing that had changed irked me. My parents replaced my old mattress with the one from the basement because my little brother wanted mine, and whenever I lie on it at night I can't help but hate it. I hate my room that is a pale blue that I had thought would never go out of style when I was seven and the white drawers that are dusty from never being opened. It disgusted me. I had never felt so revolted in my life, and I tried to find the good in freshly prepared pancakes every morning and straight-from-the-garden orange juice my dad squeezed whenever he could, but all I could see was that my mom had switched from making her own pancake batter to store bought powder, and that my dad's orange squeezer had transformed from being his hands to being a pristine, clear vase with a strange mechanism on the top that, at the end, would be less effective than my dad's brutal fist.

The only thing that had stayed the same was Sian, and he was as careless as ever. Every year since high school we reunited on the same winter break and on the same mistletoe-d doorstep. We would hug and kiss if we felt like it, but most of the time we didn't. We would get our fake ID's from our sweet sixteen days and go to one of the two clubs in our town. Sometimes both, but we had to be in a very specific reckless mood. If we kissed, we went to two clubs. If we didn't, we awkwardly held hands in the line for the one club we choose and spoke sparingly about things that didn't matter, things we would forget later in the night when we slept in our individually bad mattresses and wish we had kissed or went to that second club. It was always the same things I pondered with Sian. 

Sometimes, in my college dorm I would miss him. It was a foolish thing to miss, but I saw his face in my mechanical physics homework and remembered the times he would tutor me if I had been too hungover to study for a test beforehand. In the back of my Latin TA's head, I saw Sian's first bad haircut and envisioned us in the mirror while I touched him softly with a pair of kitchen scissors attempting to fix my mistake. And even though it was terrible, I missed him the most when I had been with my old boyfriend, Derek. 

I broke up with Derek two weeks ago because he cheated on me. I saw an incoming phone call on his phone the night before with an endearing, and definitely not friendly, nickname. He had began crying frantically, begging me to forgive him, telling me it had all been a mistake, and it made me feel nauseated. 

I asked him why he would do something so terrible, but I already knew the answer. Because he could, and why wouldn't he? I was there, a soulless figure to him. I wasn't his mother, I wasn't mothering-material, I was simply a girl. Someone who was fun when she wanted to be, but any real ounce of humanity would've cracked his opaque delusion that I wasn't just a body whose free will depended on the people around me. I saw the way he observed me, trying to find the most artificial things about me to exemplify, to use in an argument, to recall later when he thought of me as a girl he had once been with. It pained me. He could easily see the moment I lied on a stranger's couch because a guy bought me shots, and if he wanted me to drink them, why wouldn't I? The time I kissed a friend just to get the attention of some pretty bartender who had been hit on a hundred times that night? The now-meaningless seconds where I lingered in his eyes, wondering if he thought of me as deeply as I did him? I did not love him, but I understood him, and I was stupid to think that meant anything more than it did. I found myself hating him for his insistent importuning, and I told him to get off the floor. He called me a whore for not caring. I told him I really wasn't.

“Sian?” I end the silence and feel him readjust his position on my shoulder.

“Hm."

“Do you ever miss me when you’re in Michigan?”

“Um,” he paused, tried to think of the things he would say when he was sober, but at the end just said what he was thinking. “Yes, I do.”

“Sian?”

“Hm?”

“I miss you too.” 

At that moment, I felt the yearn of my lips to feel his, as if they had once left an imprint that had never been fulfilled again. I imagined him cradling me while I told him about all the things I hated and wished were different. I wanted him to say he understood me. 

I had never truly thought of Sian as a serious romantic option until now, because tonight had been different. He called me from the airport, asked if we were going out together tonight, and his tone was different, it was soft, it was excited. When he picked me up promptly at ten PM, he didn't hesitate to pull me towards him, and not to kiss me, but just to smile at me with his hands on my waist. For a second, I saw myself in his eyes. He saw me as a person. He told me I looked beautiful, but he didn't say it in a way that made me want to bathe in scathing hot water to rub the exhale of the words off of me. He put his hand on my back and while we walked down the street to the nearest club, and he asked questions that actually mattered. He bought me rum that made my fingers tingle and filled my body with a golden warmth that only his rum could bring me, he helped me reapply my lipstick once the golden warmth meddled in my head, and he helped me walk once the golden warmth had finally settled in my toes and made me unable to get into the cab. Sian, the option I had never explored, lying on my shoulder.

“Sian?”

“Hm.”

“Do you ever think we could be together?”

“Oh,” This time he let the words flow easily. “Yes, I do.” 

The wind whistled.

“Well,” he glanced towards me. “What do you think?” Do you think we could ever be together?"

“Yes, I think so.” Before he could say anything, I continued. “Do you remember when you would help me with my physics homework? Why did you do that? You were hungover too. And why did you let me give you a haircut? I can't even cut a piece of paper straight. And why did you let me be with Derek? I know you don't know him, but you would've hated him. Gosh, you really would've hated him.”

“Derek? Is that a boyfriend?”

“It doesn't matter," I said intensely. “You don't get it. I'm asking why you would do that. I'm not your mother, I don't think anyone thinks I would make a good mother, so why do you care about me? I can't change. I'm trying to change into someone people could care about, but I haven't and I can't. People want me to stop going to parties, but this used to be me, this used to make people like me. Now people barely see me as a person. I don't even really like parties. I hate making out with people. I hate vodka. I hate when guys whisper things in my ear. I hate it all. Why do you care about me?” 

“I'm not people. I know all those things. I think you would make a great mother." I turned away from him, wanting to keep his words in my mind despite my inebriated state. 

He did not stop. "I helped you with your physics homework because I cared. I let you cut my hair when you asked because I cared. I would never have let you be with Derek if I hated him, because I care. I always care, and it's because you're a real person, a good person, someone who has no reason to change in my eyes."

I imagine us at school many years ago, when I spit in a few girl's faces when they made kissing faces towards us while we played in the wood-chip-full playground. Things had been different then, but Sian had been the same. I had seen the glint of hurt in his eyes when he saw my disapproval at the idea while he sat on the wood-chip-full ground, watching me. He still watches me, and I imagine us now, wondering what he is thinking, wondering if the words he is saying are as deep as I think they are. I imagine us later, already graduated, and although the image is blurred at first when I dial in my thoughts and really focus, I see us, I see him kissing me on the same bad mattress and us not needing to go to clubs to see each other anymore. 

“Sian?”

“Hm?”

“I think I love you, have you ever thought of that?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Oh?”

“I love you too.” 

And once the words have seeped out of his mouth, for the first time in a long time, everything feels familiar again.