Melting

The ice cream is melting already. Melting from the moment it came out of the buzzing machine into the humid Floridian air. Melting even before the cashier can tell us to have a magical day. We dig at the drooping bits with our plastic spoons, trying to keep our swirls upright. We dart between the over-chlorinated pool and the stacks of hardwood balconies. The afternoon echoes with children’s splashes and screams. Tinny speakers twang with Hawaiian guitars. We pass the broad-leafed birds of paradise, and the pavement opens up to a flat expanse of sand at the lake’s edge.

Across the placid surface of the water, you can just barely make out the spire of a make-believe castle. She’s the real showstopper; this artificial beach just one of her many amenities. The rest of Bay Lake is ringed by her resorts. Hundreds of hotel room windows peek out on quadruple-digit views. Too rich for couples like us to stay for the night, much less a week-long vacation. But for a moment on a frantic day, we know the Polynesian’s beach is just the spot to slow down.

Our favorite seat comes into view, and it’s unoccupied. We flick off our sandals and beeline for it. The warm sand feels so nice as it gives way beneath my feet and sinks between my toes. Overhead, the sky is a pale blue watercolor, flecked with fluffy clouds. The summer sun offers its daily farewell; a blaze of orange seared across the horizon.

We pick our way through the ranks of Adirondack chairs. They’re dotted with families from out-of-town, guests of the hotel, or locals like us – who’s to say? We sidle up to the swinging bench, and melt into our favorite seat. My bare heel presses into the beach, and the chains holding up our bench creak in protest as they swing. Ever so gently, I rock us back and forth. With the water stretching out ahead, it almost feels like we’re bobbing in calm seas, on a boat all our own.

I scoop another mouthful of my frozen treat while I watch the sun dip below the Grand Floridian. The pineapple offers a sweet tang, while the creamy vanilla harmonizes. Two unique flavors enmeshed into one incredible dessert. I think about how nice it is to take a moment to slow down, to savor each bite of this sugary indulgence, to bask in this rare moment of peace together with you.

Your head settles into my shoulder. Your soft, dark curls dance in the breeze. You peer up at me, I meet your gaze, and we share a smile. With those chestnut-brown eyes of yours glinting with the setting sun, you say, “I wish we could stay here forever.”

And I wish we could too, with all my heart.

But how do we linger in a moment forever? My mind sets to puzzling it out just as my mouth sets to devouring the pineapple-vanilla whip.

I’d imagine it’d be a lot like how they preserve butterflies. They snatch some beautiful, yellow-winged thing from nature. Then they nail it to a wall in some stuffy room for an audience to ogle. I wonder if any of the guests would see more than shiny wings behind plexiglass. Can they picture the lifetime of fluttering, frenetic motion, or is all they see a dead insect? 

You and me, on this bench, forever. If this is our still-life, what did we look like in flight?

We looked like an avalanche of hangered clothes flung across the room. We looked like your ever-looming suitcase behind a slammed door. When you’d storm out to spend another night adrift, I’d wait wordlessly for your return. My heart aching for the apology that might let us stay forever. If I could just find the perfect words, could I have pinned us in place, like a monarch high up on the museum wall? Why can’t I take only the best of our days and soak them in epoxy? Then you’d stay, for all to see, motionless forever on that bench with me.

No, that’s not right. That doesn’t sound like what I’d wish for.

What if instead, I could can this evening, like some kind of soda? Then, on our tear-stained nights, I could pull the tab on today. I’d offer you a swig whenever you screamed at me. Maybe you’d stall at the carbonated taste. Would you recall the sun warming our embrace? You could sip at the vanilla swirl of our beachfront sundaes, instead of shouting me down for my insecurities. We could share a six-pack and put all the petty patterns behind us, if only for today. But how many liters would I need to brew before I started to feel like I deserve you?

Hmm, this isn’t coming out right at all. I do wish we could stay here forever, right?

Of course I do! I’d give anything to seal this this sunlit snapshot in amber! Let the archaeologists come, millennia after our tempers have cooled. Uncover our marriage like some forgotten artifact! Study us in just this moment, forever! Let them find no fault in us, no evidence to question our bond! Publish peer-reviewed prose examining this outing of ours. Shout to the world that “This is what love looks like!” Let history dismiss my doubts, the same way you have. If we tell ourselves the same lies again and again, how long until we no longer believe them?

I’m not sure there’s a way I can stay here forever. Or if I even should stay.

Today’s last rays of light have already left us. My melted soft serve pools at the bottom of its plastic dish, dripping sticky streaks down my arm. You’re already skipping down the beach, drawn by the romance of the nightly fireworks. Your footprints in the pale sand beg me follow, but for the first time in seven years, I’m asking myself if I can.

If I could wish for anything, I’m not quite sure what I would do.

But I know I’d wish for more than to stay like this forever with you.