There is no romance in June.

If I knew how to make believe, I would tell you the winter weather would have made us feel differently. I would close my eyes, let reality disappear in the darkness and forget I was wearing shorts and he was without a jacket—forget how in the summer one is expected to be happiest. This was not the case, nor the situation I was kept within—I am too sincere to lie—too real to imagine it being as it was not.

It was June. It was night. It was the first place I remember where it felt empty. And it was the last place I remember being not entirely alone. That night in June, I would come to ask him what he was thinking. Without turning to look at me, he would respond that he was not thinking, just seeing. Feeling I understood the language his thoughts spoke in, I would carry the conversation further—question him more—needing him—needing to hear more. What, I asked. Can we be remembered for? He never looked at me anymore than it was required—just away from me, thoughtfully—as if he were answering to someone else. Oh come on, I would laugh playfully. Once we are finished, what will you remember? That is impossible, he responded. When something is finished, there is nothing continued to be remembered. Then silence spoke and we sat still, expressionless and just listened. You sound so fatalistic tonight, he interrupted. I sighed—his voice sounded unmoved—his tone made it seem like I was listening to someone I had just met and may never know.

In between the silence of stillness was the light touch of serenity that I could not feel, but I knew was there and waiting to be realized. On top of the roof we felt distanced from the world, but it was the night sky, acting as a curtain, which separated us completely. We did not take advantage of the privacy though. Instead, we became more uncomfortable because of it. I saw myself acting unfamiliar—as if the lack of light changed the way I was exposed—as if the night hid me from myself. I looked at the four balloons, shadowed by the spotlight of the moon, and watched them danced with their partners. They experienced a romance I no longer know presently, only in memory, which soon will become soft, drop into a void and leave me with no clarity.

His camera’s view framed me, and made the night burn with its familiar flash—fixating me forever. He took pictures that pleased me—and over time it became so habitual that I learned how to perform—how to be captivating—how to make myself captured. Our motivations were different though. He used his camera to stop time—to make me last in a moment he wanted to know me for. But I knew all along, it was a way to create me and fulfill a desire that would make him feel more complete. It would help him remember me in a way he wished I always stayed—a way to hold me in a presence I no longer assumed—a product of the past that placed me in a moment that no longer belonged.

I watched him as he sat there unintelligibly. He was overly cautious of the need to perfectly pretend that he was not aware of being beneath the gaze of another. He untangled a knot, laughed at something no one else had heard—all the while being entirely consumed with the importance of appearing attentive elsewhere and on something other. I looked at him—or rather, the side of his face that he had angled to be seen—and truly tried to look within. For so long I had felt the need to believe that his eyes were centered within his self—that his silence spoke for a personal situation where he was spending social time retreating within his own interior. But now, I no longer knew what to see to believe. After time away from him, I came back and saw him differently and perhaps, the distance had decided this. Watching him now, I found an alternate reality that could be possible. He was not looking deeply into thought—he had fewer thoughts than I had originally given him credit for having—he was looking into nothing. He existed for me passively. And this—this very being—annoyed me. But he stuck around because his presence occupied time that would otherwise be spent singularly in the seclusion of the mind. I began to know less of him though, which was no help in understanding any more of him, and I became silent more often because of it.

He turned to me finally with an expression that promised an excuse for his behavior. But he promised nothing. To you, I am just weird. You are always saying how weird I am. Listen, I don’t want you to think weird would be the primary word I would use to describe you. How could I, when everyday I am told I am either weird or crazy? I cannot decide which I prefer. But you, you are foreign. Well I would prefer unique. You can have unique, I assured him. They are not mutually exclusive. But strictly speaking, in terms of our relation, you are foreign.

I remember that night in June. A night that spoke of the distance, but which I have never been able to grow distant from. It was not winter and perhaps that is why there was no romance.