All the People in the World

Chapter 13: Adam and Eve

I think she despised herself. And I despised that about her. Not in a way where I blamed her or hated her. By this point, all the things I had hated in her had dripped away to nothing. I despised that it was an attribute she held. I despised that she had to carry it around everyday. It seemed so heavy and there was nothing I could do.

At the cafe she spoke of her parents. How she was not sure if she missed them or ever would- ever could. I could tell she was ashamed of herself and thought I would be too. Her eyes, which I usually found annoyingly steady, shifted in a way I didn't recognize. She looked more naked then than any night we've ever spent together. And I hope you don't find it crude, me saying so, but I felt much closer to her at that cafe than any moment I've been inside her. Perhaps because she had been with other men, but she was speaking words to me that she had not yet even confessed to herself. She got ahead of herself at one point.

"I think that's been the most painful part. That I never got to know them as well as I feel I should have. And I never loved them how I should. You are the first person I've really-"

She stopped, her eyes wide, fearing she'd misstepped. "The first person you've really what?" I asked.

I knew she would evade the question, but I tried anyway. "You know what," she practically whispered. She wanted to hear it first. She wanted to hear it and know it was okay that she felt this way before any admission of her own. I understood. I wanted to give it to her then, right there on that plaza. All of my love and adoration and anything else I could muster up. But I didn't. I didn't because I didn't want to say I love you, too. I hate when people say that. And especially to her it would feel particularly cruel. Because I didn't love her too. I just loved her. I loved her without reciprocation or expectation. I loved her without receiving anything back. And I did not want her to think I was only saying so now because she had implied something and I felt pressure to imply it back.

"How are you guys doing?"

The waitress appeared, saving us in a way.

"Good! Good, I think- I think we're about done, yeah?" I looked to Ava for approval. She nodded.

As the waitress gathered our coffee mugs, I set the money down for the coffee on the table. Then I took her hand and we made our way off the plaza and into a long alleyway filled with more vendors badgering people into buying their fruit.

"We haven't spent much time in town," she noted as we walked. My arm was wrapped around her like a fashionable scarf. She wore it well.

I nodded. "It's changed since I was young," she added.

"How?"

"Everything's smaller... and more real. That's one thing I hate about growing up."

"Things were not real when you were a child?"

"No, it was surreal. But of course it is, when you're experiencing everything with all of you. This street would have overwhelmed me as a child, all of the colors and smells and sounds. Then we grow up and we get very good at processing and analyzing. We compartmentalize. And suddenly it's just a street."

I let her words hang in the air for a moment and watched them float up towards the sun. "I like the way you speak."

"Hm," she smiled, "I like the way you listen."

I laughed and kissed her ear. She leaned into me, then turned her face to me, "You are the only thing that overwhelms me now."

I grinned and shook my head, "You shouldn't say things like that to me in public." I placed my arms around her waist and rested them there.