The Words You Won’t Hear

There’s a place on Ives where tree roots have kicked up cobblestones, rearranging the brick sidewalk into breaking waves. I remember the morning you tripped on a corner and I couldn’t catch you. You fell, bled, and I fell too— soaking in the pain that seeped out your skin. We sat by that silent asphalt stream, and seeing your twisted up ankle hurt me more than I could understand. 

I used to wait for you outside your classrooms, after third period and fifth, each week experimenting how I arranged my limbs when I greeted you. I wanted to lean against the doorways like a prince, but I felt a fool for trying— all awkward limbs and itchy chaos encased in skin. Every day when you stepped out, I longed to take your hand, lace your fingers proudly with mine as we walked the halls. I could have; so many other girls do. But I never did, because I needed it to mean more to us than it did to them. Instead, you took mine.

I remember the rush of heat on my cheeks when you pressed close, how your hair smelled when you graced me with a hug. I remember the full-body buzz that ricocheted through me when you laughed. We weren’t best friends, but I called you that so it would make more sense.

We were dates to homecoming, then winter formal. Then I did your hair for prom and wasn’t the one who stepped into the limo with you. I realized that night I never really liked dances— I just liked us together under those lights, where we were nothing but the mix of our sweat and hoarse voices, so close that the roar of questions in my mind melted away, sinking behind the bass in the music we danced to.

I remember summer after senior year, the last day before you moved. When your voice like honey called me sweetheart, and I wanted so badly to call you love my ribs felt concave on my lungs.

I remember how soft your lips were against mine. The hot puff of your breath tickling my nose, just before I let you treat our kiss like you treated our hugs and sleepovers and handholding— like “girlfriends” just means friends, like it wasn’t cruel to make what I wanted most mean goodbye.

Only I fell and you didn’t bleed, but didn’t it hurt to see the aftermath? Didn’t it hurt to see me twisted up— to leave?

. . .

College came and I threw my body into the fray, because my heart was back home, severed and hanging limp. I could pull any body against mine, bring girls into my bed and ask them to stay. I could smile against their mouths and tell them I felt whatever they were feeling too. And when they all left, one by one, I spent weeks telling myself the emptiness I felt was my own, and not a poison you seeped into me through that single kiss.

Our texts were firecrackers, sporadic and short lived, but they lit up my nights more than anyone I was allowed to touch. You still called me sweetheart, tethering me back to you, spanning the miles between us with spider silk threads. The things you sent at 1 a.m.— they became tattoos against the inside of my skull, something tender I reached for after you stopped replying, just to feel the sting.

And then I met someone a few years back. I could have kept it nothing, held her hand like you do with your friends, but I knew it was different. It still is. I know if I actually let you know about her,  you’d want to know everything— but how could I cram the magnitudes we’ve built into something you can understand? All I can give is this:

Her smile isn’t as sweet as yours, but it coaxes out mine. Her hair isn’t as smooth as yours, but I love to tangle my fingers in every curl. And her laugh doesn’t hurt me as much as yours— I don’t think anyone else’s ever will, and I used to lie awake at night wondering if that was good or a sin. But now I spend my nights under her fort of sheets, and there my chest is clear and clean. The tighter she holds me, the freer I feel.    

She never calls me sweetheart, but we call eachother love.

. . .

You didn’t ask for me to say any of this, and I’ll never say it outloud. Maybe I’ll go home and write it down in that little leather journal you gave me. But the words I’m speaking to you now, though my own, are not this— they’re not the truth I want to give you. Because I know you; I know you as deeply as I know that girl I was, and I know the limits you draw in the air. 

Still, this will all slip in, won’t it, despite everything?  You’ll read this despite how hard we both might try to burn it.

—So why bother trying? 

. . .

It’s been too many years, and still the second you walked through that door, I knew it was you. You’re neater now, calmer— less lively, maybe, but the years have taught you to hold your chin higher. Still, I’d know you anywhere, through a sense that’s been hidden away sleeping inside me, through something deeper than the five senses at the surface: a ripple in the spider silk connecting us. 

And you caught my eyes immediately too— did you see me looking at you? Do I look the same? Did I look at you the same way, with the same glint in my eye we both pretended didn’t exist? Or did you sense me before you even saw me, through what we built and buried all those years ago, over all those years?

The cafe is a low hum, a drowsy meadow, around us. When we hug in reunion, I can’t help but bury my nose into your hair. You use a different shampoo now— something far fancier than the drugstore tubs we used to buy on sale, but it still smells like home. Your smile cuts, as always. Your laugh moves mountains inside me, as always. I thought I’d stop feeling this way, just as I knew I’d never stop feeling this way. 

We float on the oil slick of small talk. Our mouths run the path of How are you’s and It’s been so long, while our eyes twitch out the calligraphy letters of what we really want to say, what we know the other can read. 

I’ve missed you. I still miss you. 

I’m sorry. 

Don’t be. 

“I love you.”

You’re stunned to hear the words I’ve told you wordlessly for years actually escape my lips, sent so freely to vibrate and sing through the air. 

I smile, treat them like three little words between just girlfriends, and let my eyes tell you I mean them, but not quite how I used too.

One last laugh, one last time you call me sweetheart, and for the first time, maybe it doesn’t hurt.