Thirty-One: Chatter.
“It's funny, most people can be around someone and then gradually begin to love them and never know exactly when it happened.”
-Anonymous
“The end,” I finish, a whisper of scratchy voice on air.
“The end,” you echo.
We sit, weightless, on withheld breath and neatly suppressed yawns. The wordless teashop chatter floats around us, competing with the sharp voices on the temporary television screen on the wall. It's dim in here, but darker outside.
I look up. Ten minutes to midnight.
You glance at me, your head against my shoulder, your eyes wide. Smiling, just slightly, I brush your hair behind your ear.
There isn't much to say now. Now that I've emptied my mind, spilled the entire contents of this month into the air. Now that it's just another one of the countless stories told in this listening teashop, words to hide in display mugs and paint themselves onto the walls.
But somehow, saying it out loud makes it feel more concrete, more solid, a tangible thing that really did happen. All fleeting worries of this being a dream are gone now, because you're here in my arms and nothing's ever felt more real.
You're wearing that terrible raincoat again, the bright yellow one that you say your mother got you so you'd always be visible in the snow. It's fitting, I think, that you end the month in the same coat you started, and in the same place, too.
We're really not supposed to be here, I guess. Your parents are throwing a New Year's eve party with extended invites to me and my family, and we were there up until an hour ago. But around eleven, you asked if I wanted to leave, because I'd mentioned that Krystal was having a little get-together at the shop with free tea.
“Greg used to be the life of New Year's,” you told me on the way, missing your little brother. “It's not really the same without him.”
So I didn't question you, because sometimes you just need something new to wish the old things away. We sneaked out the back and ran through the streets, hand in hand through the air of electric anticipation, and ended up here, soaked by the ever-pouring rain. It's quieter in the teashop, calmer, and I only have to be back in time to drive my presumably drunk aunt and uncle home.
We're still silent. I guess that's all we can be, really, after everything I said. We're marinating in the emotions and events, remembering them in perfect clarity and storing them away in our minds.
“Tell me a story,” you'd whispered in my ear. So I did. I told you our story, which you probably weren't expecting but I didn't care, because I wanted you to know everything. How I'd felt, how I'd always felt; I wanted to see my thoughts as clearly as I was beginning to see yours, even though it probably wasn't necessary. You writers can read people like they're books.
“Five minutes,” Krystal calls, her loud voice slicing air as she steps into the main room with a tea tray in her hands. It's packed in here, with people at the tables and on the tables and even littering the carpet. We were lucky to snag that fateful loveseat, although I guess people just don't want to sit on something that has a pretty good chance of falling apart. That's okay, it can just be ours.
“Hi, Krystal,” you say as she passes and gives us each a new mug. It's a special tea, something she's reserved for New Year's only.
She pauses. “Hello, Ellery! And Sam, long time no see. Look at you two lovebirds, so cute.”
