Love, Repeat

Love sends us in directions we never imagined going. Paths that very often end for unexplainable reasons. Like when he or she didn’t return your call and never spoke to you again. But sometimes love ends for clearly obvious reasons. A Cheating partner or different growth patterns. An annoyance a lover can’t get over. Like the way she laughs, or the way he curls his toes. Sometimes people just get bored and want something different. Marriage often happens too soon. Before a couple knew better. Before they know what they want. Long before they know who they will turn into. Others become jaded. Heartbroken and lonely. Aching to recover something lost. A love from the past that floods the imagination with possibility. 

Kim had a long career in the world of dating. She was, as she told her best friend Marie, “ a professional.” 

“Yeah, yeah. So am I. Well, at least I was until I retired.” 

Marie had been married for over seven years. His name was Paul; a successful executive type. Slick backed hair, muscular and handsome. He looked like a model from a magazine. Marie quit her job as a teacher's aide at the local elementary school. She dropped out of a teaching program. All her life she had wanted to become a teacher. 

“It was your dream, Marie,” Kim had told her. “Ever since I have ever known you, you have always wanted to be a teacher.” 

“I know...” Marie said. “But now I have Paul. And did you know he paid off all my debt!”

Kim worked for a law firm downtown. She was making terrific money. The only men in her life were her father and random guys she found on the internet. They were never the same boy. Never the same lover. But in her mind--it was always him. 

She was often depressed. She’d been single for three years and her only reprieve from loneliness was when she opened up a dating app on her phone. She scanned the images of men in her area, searching for a familiar face. Her imagination stirred into the usual fantasy of her perfect partner. By the end of the night her loneliness was temporarily cured. When she kissed him, when her eyes were closed tight, he became someone else.  

The summer going into high school she met Adam at the park by her house where she grew up. Marie had dragged her there. She can remember it like many of her other old memories. Dreamy, rich in color. So distant in her mind she wondered if it was actually real. She was thirteen years old. They had gone to meet a guy that Marie wanted to see. He was older. A sophomore. When they got there, Adam was there too. 

That night Kim and Adam became magnetized. Drawn like gravity toward the center of the Earth. By the end of summer they were boyfriend and girlfriend. As the years passed, the memory of that summer drifted from their reality into the great expanse of the rest of their lives. It was like a moon tied to the Earth by a tether, always moving further away from its original celestial orbit, never forgotten but harder to see as it drifted further into space. 

Bad news came when Adam’s parents announced they would be moving before his junior year. Kim was destined to stay in California, Adam left for Minnesota. They made it work for another two years over a long distance relationship. And it worked. They fell more deeply in love through love letters and AOL instant messages. And when Adam announced he would be moving back she was elated. But when he arrived things were different. The love letters stopped, so too did the AOL instant messages. Something had changed between them. Then there was the night of the party. Adam didn’t want to go (something he would spend the rest of his life regretting). She got so drunk that someone she barely knew took her into the bathroom and not so politely asked for her virginity. That was the beginning of the end.

Adam discovered Kim on social media. He remembers finding her first on Myspace. They’d begun talking again but his girlfriend at the time didn’t approve of the friendship. And when Facebook started he found her again. This time he was single but Kim was in a relationship. And over the years he followed her life on Instagram and saw how she was going to law school and all the parties she attended. They had remained friends for nearly thirty years. At some point Adam married, moved to Arizona, and had two sons. 

He had been divorced for over a year now. His boys were split fifty percent with his ex wife Leanna. He had been dating but it wasn’t working out. He went through women quickly. They were all too young and the end result was always the same. After the sex it was usually over. 

Adam’s heart had only been broken once. Her name was Suzanne. They had been seeing each other for six months when she abruptly stopped calling. Stopped answering her phone. He went knocking on her door concerned. The door opened a crack. 

“I don’t want to see you anymore. I’m sorry.” 

No other explanation. He was devastated. 

He often thought about Kim and the summer of love. He traced the outlines of the memories across the landscape of his past and imagined how things could have been different. He messaged Kim one evening while he had been drinking. He was lonely without his boys and most of his friends were in relationships and didn’t get a chance to go out much. 

“Hi,” is all he had said. And this random out of the blue contact went unacknowledged for two weeks. She had ‘seen’ his pathetic “hi,” but didn’t respond. He felt stupid. After the second week he didn’t care anymore and fell into a spiral of jaded cynicism. 

And then one evening when he opened up his phone he saw, “hi, sorry, didn’t have a moment to respond initially. How are you?” 

His stomach dropped when he saw the text and he was embarrassed by how much her response made him feel something.  

“It's not a problem,” he texted back. “I was just bored and honestly, a little drunk :)” 

She didn’t respond for another two days. Did she think the only reason he had texted her was because he was drunk? Why didn't he just come out and say what he was feeling? He wanted to see her. He wanted her close to him. 

“Hi again...sorry for my delayed responses. Been super swamped at work… (understatement) What have you been up to?” Kim finally wrote back. 

“Working a lot too. Have the boys starting tomorrow for a week. Looking forward to seeing them. And you?” he typed while standing in the doorway to his home, the front door still open behind him. He shook his head knowing how pathetic he was. How long had it been that he actually wanted to be close to someone?  

“Your boys are cute. I see them on IG.”

“You should come out sometime. I’d really like to see you,” he typed, but his finger hovered and hesitated over the send button. It sat on his screen unsent while he thought about it in the shower. 

When Adam moved back to California from Minnesota he left his family behind. After things fell apart with Kim he met Leanna and they eventually moved to Arizona to be closer to her family. They were married, had two wonderful children, procured a mortgage, two cars, and a shared bank account. Over many years they drifted apart and became different people. The divorce was painful for everyone. He wanted to take his boys and move to California but they were firmly rooted in the desert. 

Adam steps out of the shower and drys off. He stares at the words still on the screen. He hits send. 

‘Transmitting…’ 

‘sent.’ 

‘seen.’ 

“How long has it been since you’ve been in Cali? YOU should come see ME.” 

Adam booked a flight a month later and left during a period when he didn’t have his boys. He was nervous in the airport. 

“Is it weird that I’m nervous?” he texted Kim from the terminal. 

“I’m nervous too :)” 

On the flight Adam worried that the result would be the same as the last time he went to see her. Was he just being desperate and reaching out to someone familiar? And not even familiar, how many years had it been? He had two boys now. Did she want kids? Would that be a problem if he didn’t want anymore? He still could, the vasectomy never happened... Adam ordered a cocktail on the flight and tried to ignore his overly active mind. “I’m just going for a visit,” he repeated to himself. “It's not like she wants a relationship with me… does she?” 

Walking out of the terminal his nerves were numbed by the alcohol. When he saw her he was amazed at how beautiful she was. It was clear that Instagram and all those filtered pictures failed to get her right.  

Adam never blamed Kim for how the relationship had ended all those years ago. If it had ever bothered him in the first place he didn't remember feeling bad about it. They were young and different people then. Their history didn’t seem to belong to them. Everything felt new. 

At the restaurant they shared small plates and drank local beer and wine. They spoke of life beyond Facebook and the snapshots of their lives. They spoke of loneliness and past mistakes. They became loose and re-magnetized. They felt a deep kinship. They felt electricity. 

As the night wore on they were tempted at other feelings. Their bodies were so close they felt cravings to caress, to press, to lean over and grab at each other's bodies, to pull at clothes. They resisted, settling on dessert instead. Afterward, they walked in the square thinking about holding hands but didn’t. When their eyes connected, jubilation passed between them like a hot current dragging them closer. Their elbows kissed and their hands connected and one of them would apologize while the other smiled and said it wasn’t a problem. They felt like children. 

Walking through the doorway of her home a comfortable silence drew out a long and heavy sexual energy they both hoped would manifest into the physical. In the kitchen Kim made gin and tonics and they sat and drank in anticipation. 

“Is there anything you would like to do tomorrow?” Kim asked. 

“I’m open for anything. It's been awhile since I’ve been in town.” 

“We can do breakfast.” 

Adam looked at his drink, held it up with a wink and took a drink. “Maybe brunch?”

“Or lunch?” she laughed. 

Adam smiled widely and took another drink. He looked over at the sofa where there was a folded up blanket with a pillow on top. 

“I hope the couch is okay. My guest bedroom is still a work in progress.” 

“No, that’s fine. Unless that is,” his heart skipped a beat and his face twitched with an energy he couldn’t help. It ran up from his stomach and into his face. The side of his mouth raised up noticeably, “I sleep with you.” It was a risk he wouldn’t normally take but the booze egged him on and he hoped to God that it wasn’t unwelcome. 

The same feelings flooded Kim’s body like a torrent that couldn’t be stopped even if she wanted it to. She wondered what it would feel like to kiss him. To touch his body. Would it be like remembering? 

It was after the second round of gin and tonics that it finally happened. A stillness enveloped them and the dining room light was the only illumination. Outside was dark. He said,

“If I kiss you will it be like before?” 

“Before what.” 

“Before I ever knew you.” 

“There can’t ever be a before. Just now. It’s only now.” 

Their tongues wrapped themselves around each other and found the insides of their cheeks. They wondered why it had taken so long. When he pressed himself into her they both sighed. They both slept on the couch. 

The buzzing of a cell phone woke them. Adam’s mind came too and he realized who he was holding. Kim felt his arms around her and it was her phone on the coffee table that was vibrating. Her head hurt and she reached out to grab it but the long arms around her pulled her back. She could see the name that was pulsing on the screen, it was Marie. It was nine in the morning. 

“Hello?” 

There was a silence then a subtle sob. 

“Marie…?” 

More sobs. 

“Marie, what’s the matter?” she pulled away from the arms that held her. She was naked. She grabbed the blanket to cover her breasts. 

“Kim, he’s leaving me…” 

“What?” 

“Paul… he’s gone.” 

“Marie, what are you talking about?” 

“Some woman he met on a business trip. Kim, shes a fucking--waitress! Can you believe that?… He says he loves her...” 

The arms pull at her. She wants to surrender into them but her friend is in distress. 

“What?” is all she can say. What she needs is a cup of coffee. What she needs is to hang up the phone and slide up against her lover. What she needs... 

“What am I supposed to do now?” Marie asks.  

Later she’ll wonder if it was the hangover that made her say it. 

“You can follow your dream now.” 

“What?” 

“You can be a teacher. Like you always wanted.” 

“Kim… did you hear me? Paul is leaving me.” 

“Good...”

“Kim. Did you hear what I said?” 

“Yes. I did. Did you hear me?” 

“I don’t know what to do…” 

“Marie. You’re free now.” 

“I don’t want to be free…”

“You’re free. He’s just a boy.” the boy at her side pulls her again and she resists and looks down at his brown eyes. “Just a boy,” she says again. 

“Can I come see you?” 

“Of course you can. But give me a couple hours.” 

“Okay,” Marie is sobbing on the other end. She sounds helpless.

“I’ll see you soon.” She hangs up. 

Kim puts her phone down on the table and slides into the arms. “I found you,” she says. “I found you again.” 

She turns around and presses against his chest. She looks up at his face and their lips come together like a delicate soft puzzle, matching at all angles. Suction and tongue. They kiss. And their eyes are open.