Just like the First Time

It was just like the first time I walked with her.

 I saw her on the street when I ducked quickly out of sight, she was walking hand and hand with someone else who wasn't me. I still remembered how smooth her hands were, how her lotion would infect my own with a strong aroma of mangos, that the very smell to this day only infects me with memories of her. Most of all, I remembered how safe I felt, how her hand enclosing my own felt like a protective aura that shielded me from the world, for the first time in my life...I wouldn't have to fight anymore, or I wouldn't have to do it alone at least.

 I remembered how our arms would swing together, almost like a child skipping happily to school, that she ensured our steps were in unison and we never lost cadence at her behest! Every step we took had to have a purpose, a feeling, a meaning…the very thing she gave my life. We’d watch our steps to never hit a crack in the sidewalk or a wandering insect, and always make sure to destroy any leaf that crossed our path when the colors changed and the cold nipped at our ears.

Yet, like the colors, our relationship changed, I didn't want her to see me, not because I was embarrassed by who I was but because I was afraid of what feelings she'd bring back up just by hearing that angelic melody that soothed my ears so many times. So I ran down an alleyway, hiding behind some trash, the garbage encasing me as one of their own, a fate I accepted.

It was just like the first time when I kissed her. 

She and he were on the altar, they had just finished reciting their vows and their devotion to one another until death do them part, sealing it with an undying fusion of souls. I recalled how she would always stay a second longer in the kiss, embracing the moment, when her hands would interlock my own in a death grip so she'd never let me go. I witnessed how she would always linger after the kiss with those oceans she called eyes, how they would pierce straight into my soul, now piercing into his. I remember the times hers and mine were filled with tears in unison, both of sadness and joy, brought forth by the worst moments in our lives and the best ones too. 

Death plagued her life, and she struggled to keep it all together, to keep a smile in the face of adversity, yet in my arms as we lay together, she dropped the facade. The tears drenched my shirt and doused my arms as I consoled her, I rubbed her back whispering into her ear how "It's okay...I'm right here." Her tears would soon come to a halt, soon replaced by her signature snoring that was a tell that she was asleep, I kissed her on the forehead and lingered, just like she always would.

Or maybe the time I made an absolute fool of myself in public, I feared that the secondhand embarrassment would be too much for her to bear, that she would pretend that she never even knew me when I slipped and spilled my food. Cheese rained from the sky, croutons pelleted me, and fruits of all sorts battered my bare body as I basked in the defeat of my poor balance. I was certain that when I would meet her eyes with my own, regret would fill where I once knew love and shame would soon encase my own. Instead, a smile as wide as her ears greeted me, the sparkle in her eyes shined as bright as Polaris during a New Moon, and tears filled the corners of them. Despite the food that caked my body and my face, she pulled me up to hold her, enclosing me and the cuisine that cased my coat to paint her own. She finished it by placing her lips against my own, lingering a second longer…

She and he raised their hands together in unison, husband and wife, for the first time and the crowd cheered, families of both ecstatic with the atmosphere of new love. Yet the air to me was sour, or maybe bitter was a better word to best describe it? I only tasted pain whereas others relished the ambrosia of new beginnings…I’d promised myself to do better when I’d received the invite, that I will let the past be the past, ignore it in hopes of the future. Yet I only felt one feeling filling me up: flee towards freedom. Her own eyes met my own as she scanned the crowd, cheering with them, her new man by her side, altogether. I might’ve been the only straight face in the building making me an easy target for her gaze. I saw then the very look that accompanied the words that finished our time together, I returned it with a half-smile, she was happy and that’s all I ever wanted for her in the end. I didn’t take the time to see if her expression changed to respond to my own, instead, I took my leave, turning around, leaving the roaring crowd and her as the door slammed behind me. Once outside, I ran into the horizon until my legs could support me no more.

It was just like the first time I held her

She always cooed and held gently close to my body when we would lie together, our legs seemingly intertangled like vines on a decaying building, our arms knotted together, and our heads face to face with one another. I loved to watch as she struggled to stay awake next to me, inevitably succumbing to fatigue, wherein I’d pull her only closer to myself.   The child handed to me was no more than a few weeks old with hair as golden as her own just starting to spout out of her head. The eyes were nothing like hers, a dark brown invaded where sapphires would’ve looked at me. The child had been given to me weeping, seeking some form of familiar comfort, something that we are all painfully guilty of well past the stages of infancy. One placed into my welcoming arms the sobbing seemed to cease almost suddenly, the dark pools that were her eyes given by her father stared back into my own, I wasn’t sure what gazed back at me. Bewilderment? Curiosity? Familiarity? 

I’d hoped it’d been curiosity as it would accompany my own. I wondered how much like her mother she would become. Would she snort if she laughed for too long and too hard? Would her cheeks flush with crimson red when she would lie? Would she impatiently bite at her nails when she was filled with anxiety? Would she be destined to hurt someone as deeply as I was? 

“No!” I muttered to myself. I found myself thinking of the victim once again. Years had passed from what had occurred between her mother and me, yet I let it infect my thoughts still. When I’d moved on, or so I thought, I only found myself looking for parts of her in others. In every person, I seemingly just sought her, the goal ended up just being how well I could replicate her in a mate. A fate I refused to continue any longer, or so I thought. The Child broke the air of silence by babbling at me, broadcasting to me a barrage of unintelligible words that ended only with a smile as wide as her ears. 

At that moment I knew, she truly was her Mother’s daughter. I’d only one hope for the future, that maybe, just maybe, some part of me lived on her. No biological connections were shared between the two of us, but I had an unshaken feeling that our souls were interlinked in some ridiculous way. Despite the foreign features of her father that feigned her appearance, I knew that inside her mother had taken hold, with time she would be an exact replica.

It was just like the very first time I ever laid eyes on her. 

Rain pelleted the umbrella I held over my head, thunder rumbled in the air, and lightning flashed in front of the funeral audience’s eyes. I look at the child, now grown up, her features inevitably a blend of her parents, as genetics would have it, yet I could still pick up on the ones that were distinctly her mother’s. The hair was almost immediate-any untrained eye could pick up on that-the other subtleties were things only few could notice. The way she tilted her head slightly to the side when she talked to people or the way she bounced on her feet every other step, just like her mother would do side by side with me.

She and I, accompanied by the many people that had the great honor of knowing her mother, stared down at the ground where her casket lay. It hadn’t mattered that she never drank, it surely didn’t matter to the wrong-way driver that put her where she is now. I didn’t cry surprisingly enough, I had grieved her enough when she was alive. I’d cried by myself plenty of times when she still lived. That’s the painful part, isn’t it? To have someone leave your life and grieve their loss, despite them being very much alive. It was harsh to say, but she was no different to me alive or dead in the end, she wasn’t and wouldn’t be in my life anymore, nor was I in hers anymore.

The rain must’ve masked the tears on her daughter’s face, I couldn’t tell if she was crying, as no expression blanketed her face. I thought how unlike her mother she was in that moment, where her mother would feel every emotion so viscerally that it would consume her entirely, the most minor things would upset her which in turn would only upset me, I never liked seeing her like that, I only wanted her to be happy. Right now, I really only just wanted her to be alive, roaming God’s green earth, basking in the evening sun in some faraway land that I would only dream of visiting. I thought to myself that maybe she was somewhere else, somewhere better…doing all the things that she and I would stay up late talking about when money and time weren’t a problem. She would be doing it with him, the one who replaced me, he was in the passenger seat after all. If I was told correctly, their hand were still clasped together even when they entered the afterlife. I’m sure in spite of the smell of oil, blood, and tears on the site of the collision there would still be the faint smell of mangos permeating from them…

The thoughts became too much to bear, so I turned around sharply, picking up my speed to start running as I always have. How typical of me to run away? Part of me was just so disappointed with myself, that I still allowed her to haunt me.

But I was stopped.

A hand darted out quickly grabbing my own and pulling me back. I turned violently to see who had done it. Perhaps her ghost was going to scold me for not staying the whole service? Shame filled me, I owed her that much to stay. When I looked, two brown cesspools of eyes greeted my own, pleading with mercy.

“Don’t leave me…Please…” her daughter begged.

Many conflicting emotions fired up within me. I thought about how I had never really cordially introduced myself to her daughter in all these years, only meeting that one time as a baby, how did she know who I was? Unless her mother had talked about me…obviously in a good enough light to warrant her asking me to stay by her side through this. Perhaps the daughter was truly alone enough, losing both her parents, to beg any stranger to keep her company? That wouldn’t be true and I knew it. If she was truly like her mother she would have no issue striking up a conversation with a stranger and making a friend, I’m sure she had many people to accompany her through this tremulous time. So what do I owe her? I thought about that hope I had those years ago, that we would hold a connection with one another throughout time, interlinked souls, in spite of biological differences. So I stayed, gripping her hand ever so tightly, as the lotion she had on them made it hard to grip. I bet that they smelled like mangos.

I was just like the first time she was there for me when I was sick.

The heart machine beeped faintly to my left and it was only getting fainter with time. I didn’t know how much longer I had. Time had truly taken its toll on me. I’d lived my life and I’d done it my way. Death was knocking at my door so I reflected back. Reflected on how I would’ve done it differently, how I wouldn’t have let her go, how I would’ve been better, and how I would’ve been the man she deserved and the one I was meant to be. I also reflected on how I could’ve just moved on, found someone else, let bygones be bygones, and ignored the past in spite of the future. Yet there was no longer any future, I’d met it with the same mentality that had armed me in the past, never changing it over this thing I called life. This was the constant battle that plagued me over these years, “to live or not to live?” I would constantly ask myself. Now there was no longer any time to ask questions and no longer any time to receive answers. 

Suddenly, through the hospital door walked her daughter with a smile as wide as her ears on her face. The eyes that I had once hated, filled me with joy when they greeted my own, with all my remaining strength I returned a smile back to accompany hers. She came to my bedside, pulling up a chair while doing so, not saying a word. 

I think she and I both knew no words had to be said between the two of us. She’d learned at a young age the painful reality of death, she knew what was coming. Now all I could remember were the words we’d shared together over the years. The ones we said at her High School Graduation, or the ones we shared as I walked her down the aisle, perhaps the ones I shared when she lay in a similar bed in a similar place as me right now after delivering another soul into this beautiful world. I felt accomplished, knowing she was the one thing in the world I didn’t mess up on, that through my biggest failure-her mother-I did one right thing.

I felt my breath getting shallower, I heard the heart monitor fade more, and I watched as the smile on her face faded and the gleam in her eyes was soon replaced by the edge of tears. The time had come, she and I knew it. She slowly rose out of her chair, careful not to move too fast, as if it would be the catalyst to send me over into the afterlife. Everything continue to slow as she leaned towards my head, her long blonde hair cascading over the I.V. in my arm. She planted a firm kiss on the center of my forehead, lingering for a second longer…For the first time in my life, I couldn’t run away anymore.

“I love you,” she whispered as the world around me went black.

It was just like the first time her mother had said those very words to me…