Trapped in Forever

56 ~ I Kissed Orion Mathers

The aroma of fabric softener and toothpaste was drifting from him as he sat down beside me, the porch swing creaking softly underneath his weight, and he glanced down, his brow furrowing, as he looked down at the floral cushion, pressing his palm into the printed petals of a tulip, probably beginning to realize that the cushions were still damp from this afternoon’s rain hours earlier, and then, after a moment, he leaned back into the porch swing, and his Nike clad feet surpassed my bare ones, the toes of my left one brushing against the worn heel of his right Nike, and the scent of dew mingled in my nose with the smell of him, sitting beside me, his hazel eyes staring out into the lawn where the beige tips of cigarette butts were scattered into the blades of grass and transparent droplets of water clinging to the petals of flowers that surrounded the wrap-around porch like a variegated moat. I felt myself faintly missing that trademark scent of icing sugar lingering on the fabric of his T-shirts or jackets, so sweet that it made you crave a taste, either from his lips or from one the cupcakes he iced with the flattened, dull knives and funnels of thin paper-like material with silver nozzles.

“I’ve been trying to call you,” he mumbled after a moment, rocking the porch swing back and forth on his heels for a brief moment before he stopped, his feet stilling with the toes of his shoes pointed for the roof that spread from the shingles of the house and hovered over the wooden planks of the porch and potted plants that danged from translucent hooks attached to the underbelly of the roof. His golden hair was obscuring part of his face but I could still see that his eyes softly drifted away from the dewy grass and over to me, sitting beside him, but then he glanced away again.

I nodded at his murmured words, turning my own gaze away from him to look down at the tops of my toes, at the ruby red pedicure that gleamed on the nails, and I lifted them off of the cool and wax-like surface of the damp wooden ground and brought my knees to my chest, my heels pressed into the moist floral cushion, concealing a bumble bee fluttering toward the yellow, pollenated center of a daisy, and my toes hung over the edge of the porch swing as I wrapped my arms my legs, feeling the faint prickliness of stubble emitting from my legs. “I know,” I told him, and he just nodded, and he seemed to look down his hands, pale and his index fingernail was bruised black instead of pink. “I didn’t know what to say to you.” I felt the words vibrate from my lips, barely ajar to pass the words, a murmur in the breeze that fluttered our hair and created Goosebumps on our arms, but I knew he had heard me because he glanced away for a moment, up, at the potted plant with flowers and stems and leaves that hung over the rim of the brown clay of the pot that dangled from the roof. “I thought you still loved her.”

I could feel the murmured words as they left my lips beginning to shift the air that floated around us, scented with the aromas of dew and fresh earth, and began to morph into a thickening tension that spread from me to him as he blinked, and his jaw clenched briefly, as if it was a muscle spasm, and then his gaze dropped from the hanging plant, the thin stems and leaves curling and encasing the clay pot, and he leaned forward, bringing his elbows to rest on either one of his knees, and his back was hunched to me as he breathed out a sigh. His hands were clasped together and were pointed toward the chain link fence that surrounded the closed pool, and he stared down at them for a long moment—a long moment that made me believe that his silence, his body leaning away from mine, as if he just waiting to slowly slip off of the damp floral cushioning and head back for his unlocked station wagon and drive way, leaving my murmured words to dangle in the air without a response.

 “I still do,” he muttered after a moment of watching him tilt his chin closer to his chest as he looked down at his hands, held together as if he was praying. I just simply looked away from his hunched body, and nodded, just once, to cuckold him into thinking that I was okay with that.  I did understand, however, because she was beautiful and lively, even when she was dead, and I wasn’t, and I also wasn’t okay with the thought of unrequited feelings, but he couldn’t know that somewhere in my chest, it felt like parts of my heart were deadening and turning brown before crumbling into dust. “But it’s . . . it’s not as strong anymore. Before, I couldn’t stop thinking about her, about how she was gone, about what I did, but now . . . everything is subtle now.” He angled his profile away from his hands, clasped together and held out in front of his legs, and he turned to look at me. “Does that make any sense?”