a love story for you

You check the time. Perfect. As intended, you’ve arrived fashionably late. Fourteen minutes and forty-three seconds is the pinnacle of being fashionably late according to your observations. It’s enough that people notice you aren’t there, but close enough to be reasonable still. Of course, this is just because you hate these types of parties, these smile and talk about banal nonsense to blurred faces of people who only know what they want to know about you, parties. 

Garbage. Garbage, garbage, garbage, you think with each smile and introduction. Go find the drink situation, see if it needs anything, that’s one thing you know how to do right socially. Pour yourself a gin and tonic, with an excess of gin. You love gin and the fuzziness it provides and it's certainly the safest thing to ingest at this party.  

You're sitting in the backyard, wondering why you came at all. You barely know anyone and it feels like your intruding. You always feel like you're in people’s way, especially in this setting. Its a warm night, and you smoke a cigarette and contemplate leaving. You have half a gin to finish, but at least you live close enough to walk home. You got a healthy buzz if nothing else at this party. 

You finish your drink and start to stand when she walks out. You look, but try to look like you aren't. She sits on a swing and you ask if she wants a push. She nods and you start, a steady smooth push, sending her up into the stars, and whooshing back past you as she descends to earth. You stay there for too long, pushing a girl you barely know into the night sky. It is strange and people will wonder, but it felt free, timeless, and right. You're not sure how to explain that to anyone. 

You don't see her for months, but when you do it still sends that itch up and down your spine. It’s like that first sip of water after you forgot to drink water before bed. You barely talk to each other that night but you both know now, you both felt the spark. 

She mentions that her ex is wild, and you nod. You know who it is, he doesn’t mess with you. It won’t matter if he tries. You haven’t even had a date, but sometimes you need too.    

It’s months later at a show before anything develops. You just actually talk. Sitting outside the show, drums blasting in the background, probing those large issues that matter before you progress. You feel as if talking to her is like putting on a well-worn boot, that hugs your ankles closely and gives room in all the right places. 

Everyone hangs out after, at the first house you pushed her on a swing. You all sit on the roof drinking and laughing in the summer night. Several of your friends tell you to “be smart” and “don’t do anything dumb”. You nod. One by one your friends filter away, while you make some of the smartest choices you ever make. The worst casualty is your sleep schedule and the sacrifice of her tights on the roof. You wake up the next morning in her bed, and you like it as much as she does, which is a lot. 

 You leave for a while. You didn't mean to fall in love and you certainly won't let it stop you from having an adventure. You write to her constantly and sneak phone calls whenever you can. You write your initials in a staggering number of obscure places, surrounded by a heart. She picks you up at the end and doesn’t even judge your aroma.

Introductions happen with your dog and her cat. You watch the tense interaction and hope that they relax with time. You snuggle and smoke and you love it. You might even settle down one day. But no rush. You move in and out of several apartments. You both develop a system and a feel of how to work with each other. You don’t think it’s perfect, but it works. You start to know what will piss her off, and you know just when to stop. 

She asks for more. You hate weddings, you tell her, but you might elope. That's enough for the time. 

Paris will live in your soul as it should, a bright light. You realize nothing you say will do it justice to someone who hasn't been.  On the third night there you drunkenly wander around for hours, walking the river and the city, feeling the magic of the place. You actually ask her to marry you there, on the banks of the Seine, with her mother's old ring. You both knew you were getting married but you wanted to ask her, just to surprise her.    

Days later you find yourself signing papers in Rome and drinking fernet and champagne at 9 in the morning. You go wandering through ruins, drunk and married. The whole trip is a drunken glorious blur of delight, you gorge yourself and binge as only a tourist can. And you? You are on your honeymoon, a god among tourists. 

You find a house in the right spot. It needs work, but you like house projects most of the time. You repeat that to yourself an awful lot, to be honest. You do love the garden though, no matter what. You nurture the bare dirt into something green and living. You know you just help and watch the miracle happen from the porch, but that’s why it is special.  

You plant a small tree and wait, You know this part takes the longest, but it will be worth it. This tree will outlive you. It will be a legacy until the day it tumbles down. A living representation of you. You watch with delight as the leaves turn scarlet in the fall. 

Where you fall is predictable, with a mistress. It’s your wife’s distant friend, which of course you should have seen coming. You know better, and neither relationship survives. You resign your self to the fate of the tree. You sit and grow and watch. The tree is as tall as the house now and you are spry enough to climb some lower branches and swing from them still.

When the tree is about twice as tall as the house she comes back to you. You are both old and filled with a lifetime of feeling. She has forgiven you, and you have forgiven yourself. You sit with each other in the contentment of experience and knowing the other. You watch as the last of the red leaves fall off the tree, fashionably late. Perfect.