There were three hims here.

How many were there? 

Four hundred knocking back cocktails? 

Or was that my imagination? 

Eight hundred?

Or were the memories of events always exaggerated?

I’m not certain of anything, but I was there—having went—never once pausing to gather an expectation. I came sober, knowing that was the law but also, admittedly, was not my reason. “I’d rather get there before they get more wasted than they already are.” I rushed with nothing on my breath. He caught me as I stepped down on the limestone, my heel almost betraying the effort of my ease, “There you are and in no time at all. You look ravishing.” As my lips settled on the curve of his cheek—my hand heading up underneath his jacket—I wondered whether it was the steel shadow that acted as a crutch for immediate decadence or my own essence he was complimenting.

In that instant was I substantially or artificially wanted?

Have you ever felt like a piece of meat—flies landing on and flying off you?

I had nowhere to go, and yet, people were everywhere. But that didn’t make it easier to feel close with someone other. I felt nothing, usually I do. Events are my comfort zone, tonight though I didn’t want to be out. I just wanted to be lying in bed with someone who said I didn’t have to speak at all. 

As soon as I took up my attention elsewhere, looking out into a crowd of…plenty,…I saw him walking toward me. I had only seen him out socially three times before we ever became physically engaged a year ago, and now I couldn’t avoid always being in close proximity with him. Then again, maybe I hadn’t seen him before, because I was never looking. 

He was better than I was at acknowledging our “friendship”. But I couldn’t bare it. I had spent too much time picturing him when he was no longer present in our engagement, and now I couldn’t swallow whatever way I thought we were being toward one another. We could say all sorts of things, trivialities I thought, but we…or myself—because I am certain of that much—was not being genuine and this I couldn’t bare. 

“Now those are a set of earrings.”

“You remember them…”

But my words trailed off, my intention amounting to nothing, as I saw some other female step out from behind him. 

I remembered our third night, when I apologized to him for being shy and saying so few things, and he assured me his intuition had already made him overlook it. I swear I had never heard the word used prior to him. But, I trusted my instinct, as well. Which is why, I never believed him when he said he wasn’t capable of a relationship. It had always frustrated me because I knew he was better than the non-feeling he tried to convince me of. I knew he was sensible, sensitive and vulnerable (even if it had only been a handful of times that I had really witnessed it). But above all, I knew if one wanted something than they were capable of committing time to it. 

Why did he look at me like that when he introduced her? With both shoulders turned toward me?

These last few engagements he had really begun staring into me. I felt the intensity.

Had he seen through me?

Why had he grabbed my waist as I stepped away to answer my phone?

I never knew what he wanted with me. He was one of the few people I had been so intimate with and yet, never remembered having exchanged a thought. For months I felt like I was being conditioned to deny him. It was something I had never done, nor ever believed I could do. During the summer, I spent a month and a half building his character in two notebooks for a novel I was writing at the time. But somehow, when I finally began writing it—one word turning into another—I couldn’t introduce him to the page. Fifty pages later and he still hadn’t appeared. I wasn’t ready for him. I didn’t know him (his interior) well enough. (He was too guarded, too afraid). And I didn’t think I needed him either, but rather wanted him to want me. 

But I’m not certain. I still look at him and wish he could tell me anything at all that didn’t sound so programmed. My behavior for the last year had been a result of him. I tried to make myself not feel. I slept with others to be inside and I quickly let myself casually go, only to return and use them for my text—lay them upon the page and hope I could feel them there, somewhere between the spaces of ink and silence of words. I didn’t blame him. It had everything to do with us. 

The party was a spectacle above all else. Wine bruised my lips and made me look looser than I felt. Adults came to be seen. Have their picture taken by the tree. Possibly be in the society section of the newspaper. Supposedly the hosts had a reputation for the roast beef. Men told me that was why they came. Females stuffed miniature cookies and chocolate covered pretzels into baggies by the door. Christmas all of a sudden became a tribute to every conceivable holiday. 

For a few minutes, I sat by the edge of the pool, absorbing what I could. Around me were three men I had been with at one point or another. They all were just as aware. I wrote a note on my iPhone—making it as short as possible, just in case anyone by chance got a glimpse, and passed the judgment that I was always making a judgment. “Avoiding the feelings of others eventually results in them denying attention toward you.” I looked out at these men who I had been close to—in some ways or others—and who I now felt less associated with. I didn’t want to be there amongst many. I wanted to be somewhere with only one. And at that instant I admitted it inwardly more and most. My appearance betrayed my thought. My desire to live in the instant had somehow also betrayed the morals of my character. I projected being unavailable and in return, I assumed I was achieving less permanence. I wished I would leave. I wished someone would come.

Ultimately, I ended up not ending the night and rode on the lap of another “him” to the beach. I had no interest, aside from maintaining my social being, which didn’t seem like it meant much of anything. One argument in the car later—sticking up for the guy’s lap I was on as my best friend reduced him at all costs—and we were there, entering the club for a drink, but in my case—I hoped—just a dance, the chance to let a few feelings go. 

I was dancing with my High School sweeeetheart, and loving his being there against his initial nerves not to. He just went with the plans, which was a new trait of his and actually how we had reconnected after seven years of otherness. Over the summer, we spoke—really—for the first time. And we laughed, always, that from July to August we made up for all the words we never exchanged. I had been a freshman, he a senior and our relation had consisted of drive by kiss-fests. I always thought he was attractive—attractive but an asshole. However, after growing up, I met him as if he were someone else, someone I had never spent my early years kissing. He was dorky and loveable. And I say a dork because he didn’t try to control his appearance; he is genuine, raw, consistent. A dork because he is endearing and because he always reminded me that since the summer—when I began calling him out on all his ways (something he hadn’t expected)—he now knew me, got me, understood me at the core. He was right. We had something special. And as a result, I stopped kissing him. I didn’t pursue the touch because I knew he was too sincere for the ways I was behaving when elsewhere. 

However, it seemed like no time before I was on the curb of 7th street, defending myself on the phone, crying. And he found me, circled me in my distraction and eventually closed in on the space right as I was hung up on. I suppose I said all sorts of things, metallic jagged down my face, trying to explain an inexplicable interruption in the night. I don’t remember what was what because I don’t think there was any purpose or any meaning I’d like to flesh out. I just was ready to leave. 

Did I cry because my body truly was as tired as it felt?

My dreams were hallucinations. I suffered in my sleep. 

Was I crying because I was there, not wanting to be, but being because I was trying to escape?

I couldn’t remember being a presence in a scene like this. But there I was—Gucci tuxedo pants, a silk blouse, jeweled earrings hanging to my shoulders and silver shadow now patched around my face—with him standing in front of me and his hand underneath my eyes, his fingerprints absorbing my tears. He hadn’t lied. He had forgiven me for curiously seeking out other relations. And then and there I didn’t doubt whether when he said he knew who I was, he meant he could see I was hurting, too. And that more times than not, I didn’t want to be tangled up in what I was, but I was because I wasn’t an inventor of meaning but a translator. I translated what was written on my body, which meant I needed to be touched, I needed someone’s hands to explore me.

He knew at times we never wanted to be as social as we seemed, so he waved over a cab and we went where we had always wanted to be for $55. The price made me feel guilty for my tears. And he told me that wasn’t what mattered.

“Do you want a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“Yes.”

“Then…”

“I’m never looking for anything.”

“But…” 

“But I do feel things out.”

“I know. Never deny that.”

I ate chocolate. Two dark doves and four mint truffle heresy kisses. The calcium made me sleepy. He asked if he could take his shoes off and I said he could do whatever he wanted. He held a glass of water with an arm around my neck. I can’t remember what we talked about. He may have said I didn’t have to speak at all. It felt good, and soon after, I feel asleep on his chest, only to wake in the morning in bed with my dog and cat, both who I never remember being present. He wasn’t there, the light was on and it hurt. But it was exactly what I had wanted. To lay in bed with someone that understood me as much as I understood him. And to close my eyes for a while. And rest my mind.