Emelia
We haven’t done the thing where we drop off boxes of each other’s stuff.
I’ve got loads of your favorite clothes here.
I know your outfits must be in fragments without them.
You’ve got a book of mine in your nightstand that I was halfway done reading and I really want to know how it ends.
This doesn’t mean I’m ready to talk in person yet.
This isn’t a way to try to make that happen.
I do need to keep that boundary for now, even if I don’t always want to.
Last time was too much for me.
But would you maybe be willing to drop off my things sometime? I can send you a list.
Or if you gather them and leave them on your front steps, I could pick them up.
I’m around tonight if you want to text or chat about it.
That’s too much to hold inside me.
I wish I could damage something and feel the release. Throw my phone across the room not caring about the cost.
As if I didn’t know about the book. I know the exact paragraph she’s on. I keep ripping back and forth about whether she left it behind on purpose. With its ending that’s going to make her cry about us. I don’t want to give it back.
I know all the things she’s left. I don’t need a list. Her pajamas and her sweaters that are too soft for me to wear but perfect for my face to press against. Her scrunchies and the earrings she took out when my hair got tangled in them.
I make a call.
I hear music playing in the background when the call connects us. Blue Cremations, an old album from back when they sounded surprisingly folky for a group that some consider a punk band. I should be listening to something like this tonight myself. I know I’m really out of sorts when I forget to turn on music, or worse when I know it will help and I just don’t care.
“You called back!”
Sasha’s voice isn’t brokenhearted, and it doesn’t break mine. There’s relief and confusion in me, but all incalculably less than the intensity of talking to . Here, in this new space with Sasha, there’s no old hurt to suddenly sink its teeth into me and pull me down.
Sasha seems rushed, lively. They say sorry for not being around. I tell them it’s fine, no explanation necessary. They say tonight they’re restless and home is too small. They called earlier because they want to bike somewhere and they don’t know where to go. Asking me because this is my city. Do I know somewhere?
“I could show you a place?”
I offer, then immediately worry that maybe that wasn’t what they were asking for at all.
“If you want company.”
“I’d love nothing more,”
says Sasha sincerely, so I give them my address, and they say they’ll be here in ten minutes. Ten minutes to think of somewhere.
’s message is on read.
I could leave her like that.
I don’t want to make Sasha wait, and I want to meet them outside. I don’t want them to interact with anyone in my family because then there will be curiosity later, and I don’t need people asking me questions. So what I write, I write fast, before putting my phone on do not disturb and trying to ignore how heavy and alive it still feels in my jacket pocket.
Lillian
Good idea
I’m out with Sasha right now but send me a list and I’ll see if I can find what you left behind