Nostalgia

Chapter 4 #2

Perhaps he was being a little sentimental, which was surprising, for I’d never thought of Kai as the sentimental type, but there was also something very earnest about the way he spoke about this place.

To see the Inside through his eyes was like observing the world through a fuzzy, sepia-hued camera lens, where the veneer of clarity was wiped away, leaving only the softer, richer underlayer of it all.

“No, it’s nice to see this side of you,” I said, bending to reclaim my glass of wine. “At the office you’re always so…”

He glanced at me, intrigued. “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” I exhaled.

Kai stepped in the space in front of me, his free hand reaching out to grab the railing next to my waist, not really caging me in, but as though he wanted to. As though he were resisting the urge to do it.

“No, I want to know,” he insisted, daring me almost.

I gave him a small, self-effacing smile. “And you always get what you want, right?”

“I never get what I want,” he argued.

“Yeah, I have a hard time believing that, Kai,” I said.

Just then, the wind blew my hair over my face, and he transferred his cigarette from his right hand to his left so he could help me tuck the flying strands behind my ears.

A kind of aching sensation braced me at his touch, a feeling like struggling to maintain control over my body.

His fingers were warm and lingering, but his eyes betrayed nothing as he asked, “And why exactly do you think that?”

I had no idea what kind of expression I was making, only that, unlike his, it was soft and revealing. “Because,” I said, “you’re you. You’re… I don’t know. Perfect.”

To my surprise, he laughed, the sound rich and strangely soothing. “Perfect? Oh Anya, believe me, I’m far from perfect. In fact, I’ve been consistently imperfect my entire life.”

“Well,” I hummed, holding back a laugh of my own, “I do like consistency.”

With the cigarette hanging between his lips, he squinted at me. Pleased. Triumphant. “Did you just admit that you like something about me?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Maybe,” he echoed.

He stirred closer, or perhaps we both did, our breaths mingling in a white fog between us, his eyes on mine, then my eyes on his lips, contemplating the tantalizing possibility of them.

My mind was filled with images of him kissing me, of him pulling me to his body with one arm and dropping the cigarette so he could thread his fingers through my hair.

His beautiful, well-defined hands I thought of, and shivered in my coat.

I could not remember the last time I’d noticed a man’s hands, the last time I felt attraction or showed interest in anything other than my own selfish existence.

I wasn’t sure what that said about the way Kai was making me feel, only that it was a lot like riding a bicycle at full speed with no need to pedal, just to realize you were racing downhill, accelerating so fast it was no longer possible to stop. Easy but dangerous.

“Hey, Kai?”

“Yes, Anya.”

“How come we’ve never done this before?”

“Because you’ve never wanted to do this before.”

Dryly, with arched brows and a complacent little smile, I asked, “And since when do you read minds?”

Kai cast his eyes skyward, feigning indignation, which he always did so gorgeously well.

“I do not read minds, Anya. You just happen to look intimidatingly content being by yourself. At the office and at events. And even when I catch you outside of work, you’re always on your own.

Reading, doing your thing, perfectly happy.

Above us all, somehow. I guess I was waiting for you to come to me. ”

I felt myself wince, my smile dropping. “Is this a polite way of calling me unapproachable?”

“No, not unapproachable,” he amended. “Just… solitary, perhaps.”

“So that’s how you see me. Cold and solitary.”

He raised the cigarette to his mouth again, his crooked smile parting, the flash of his tongue passing over his teeth, all so sensual somehow. “Again, I never said cold.”

“It’s okay if you think that. People have said it to me before.”

Something shifted in his gaze, a line slowly forming between his brows. “Who said that?”

I shrugged, enacting disinterest. “Just some girls from work.”

“I see,” he murmured, and with a gentleness that caught me off guard, he asked, “Did it hurt you that they said that?”

Grimacing, I ran my fingers over my forehead. It was damp. I felt hot, melting, the few sips of wine I’d had roiling in my blood. “No, not really,” I admitted. “Do you think that makes me a bad person? Am I, I don’t know, disconnected?”

In his usual, unwavering certainty, Kai shook his head.

“Of course you’re not disconnected. People just communicate in different ways.

Someone might tell you, ‘I think you’re a cold person,’ and actually mean, ‘I want to be your friend, but I’m afraid you’re disapproving of me.

’ You know, not everyone understands solitude.

The kind of strength and integrity it requires. ”

Hearing him say this, in that low, plaintive tone, made me wonder if Kai felt like he had to sacrifice certain parts of himself in order to be accepted by as many people as he did, that he had to compromise his personal beliefs and therefore his moral integrity in order to be liked.

But weren’t we all doing this in one way or another?

Weren’t we all constantly reshaping ourselves to form connections, slipping into our chosen identities, and sharing only what we deemed acceptable enough to share?

And if that was true, didn’t that also mean we had no original version of ourselves?

That we were all just mirrors of each other?

Questioningly, I met his dark gaze. “Why did you call me tonight, Kai?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, releasing a long, shaky breath. “Maybe because today you looked like you needed someone to ask if you’re okay. And I guess I wanted to be that someone.”

It all came down to that, didn’t it? Connection. Our collective responsibility to care for our fellow human. Because we really were mirrors. Because one’s reflection could not exist without the other’s.

How lucky I was to live in a world where I could be seen and understood like that, even if it was only by one person?

This person, him. Lucky, yes. So what did it matter if I was missing a few words?

Why was I wasting my time and energy trying to comprehend things that perhaps were not meant for me to comprehend?

Why was it so hard for me to surrender, to acquiesce to the life I was given?

Kai, unbeknownst to my conflict, let out a contented sigh. “I like this.”

“What?”

“This,” he said with a small, meaningful smile.

Influenced, like a tide with its moon, I felt myself smile back. “Let’s do it again some time.”

“Let’s keep doing it right now,” he countered, walking backwards toward the trashcan by the entrance to dispose of his cigarette. By the time he returned, a fresh one was hanging from the corner of his mouth.

“Give me one?” I asked, and he offered me his last one. He only had one match left as well, and during its small journey from my cigarette to his, the little flame gave out.

“Fuck,” he muttered between his teeth. “Come here.”

Slipping a hand over the nape of my neck, he pulled me close so he could press the smoldering end of my cigarette to his.

His hand was surprisingly strong. His eyes were onyx-black and depthless.

Neither of us looked away, and a sort of wanting stirred in me.

Something that ticked and pulsed. Like a heart. Like a hunger.

When a curl of smoke wafted up from his cigarette, he released me from his hold and drew back a little, exhaling. I stayed as I was, keeping the smoke in the back of my throat, for I knew that this was the taste of his mouth now.

“What flavor is this?” I asked, my voice lower, softer than I meant it. “Is it cherry?”

He nodded, his gaze riveted on mine. “I like that they’re sweet. But I can run downstairs and get you another pack if it’s not to your liking.”

I raised the cigarette to my lips again. “No, it’s growing on me.”

We smoked in companionable silence for a while, standing right next to each other, our elbows on the railing. The world below seemed to grow still and quiet, and my mind, as if caught in a groove, returned to that word and this drowning feeling of ignorance.

“Why do you think I was not provided with it?” I asked him. “Nostalgia.”

Moonlit and vague as an apparition, he mused, “Words come to us when we need them. That’s why they affect us so much, I think.

They always come at the right time, and they always stay.

Every tangible thing you own will disappear.

But the words you know will stay with you forever.

And maybe…” Very softly, he smiled to himself.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was meant to be the thing that would bring you here tonight. ”

Helplessly, I laughed. “You’re a very romantic person, Kai.”

Again he turned his body toward mine, his cigarette drawn downward, forgotten already. “Am I?”

“I think you are,” I said. “Unless you’re pretending to be. Unless you’re trying to make me fall in love with you or something.”

“Ah,” he sighed. “And we don’t want that, do we?”

Slowly, I passed my fingers over the spot he had touched on my nape just a moment ago. He followed the movement with his eyes, his lips parting in understanding. Don’t make it so obvious, I implored myself. But it was hopeless. I knew my body was telling him everything I didn’t want him to know.

“Well, it would make things complicated at work,” I pointed out.

Subtle raise of his brows, his head tilting to the side. “Is that the only reason?”

Of course he didn’t think this was a good enough reason. We can be discreet, he was probably thinking. We can be professional. It’s not that big of a deal anyway.

Only that it was to me. Just standing here next to him, I felt stupidly willing, my limbs warm and pliable, like I was made of clay.

If he asked me to go back to his apartment now, I knew I would say yes.

I found him so ridiculously attractive I could picture myself taking off all of my clothes and telling him that he could do whatever he wanted with me.

And if tomorrow morning he acted as though nothing had happened between us, I knew I would be too mortified to say something about it.

I didn’t think Kai was that kind of person, but what if he was?

I couldn’t put myself in this position. We saw each other every day.

Our desks were literally joined. It would be unbearable.

“Kai,” was all I said.

“Right, right,” he agreed peaceably, knowing and understanding everything I wasn’t able to articulate. “Friends, then.”

“Friendly friends,” I promised.

“No, I beg of you,” he groaned. “Be cruel. Be a terrible friend. Make this easy for me.”

“Okay,” I laughed, throwing back my head in genuine delight. “I’ll make it easy for you.”

Eyes glittering, because yes, even defeat looked gorgeous on him, he said in a low, intimate voice, “Oh, but you see, you’re already making it so difficult.”

There were so many things I could have done or said in that moment.

Or rather, I’d like to believe that I could have made a different choice, that as a matter of fact there was such a thing as free will, and that we were not mere prisoners to some subconscious part of our brains where everything was arranged into something that a more romantic person, someone like Kai, would call destiny.

But in the end, whether it was fate or free will or some other unseen device that I didn’t have the expansiveness of mind to even imagine, I said the one thing that changed everything.

“Can I ask you something strange?”

His cheeks dimpled. “You can ask me anything. Especially if it’s strange.”

“What does it mean to you? Nostalgia.”

He frowned at the question, flicking the ashes of his cigarette. “I suppose I feel the most nostalgic whenever I think about my childhood. Remembering things like summer camp and…”

On and on he went, recounting memories in perfect, colorful detail.

He spoke of Saturday morning cartoons and mystery popsicle flavors, of playground games and curfews and rebellions.

He spoke of quirky but affectionate relatives and eventful summer vacations.

Band posters and mixtapes and going everywhere with his brand new walkman.

Schoolyard confessions and holding hands with his crush for the very first time.

Lovely, sun-drenched recapitulations that grew more and more disturbing to me for each sentence brought me closer to the unrealized horror of my existence: I had experienced none of that.

I had experienced none of that because I had no childhood.

In fact, I had no memories at all.

Instantly, a wall shut down in my mind, and I was cut loose from myself, abandoned in a dark liminal space where I could have spent years, decades, my whole life searching for a way out, a way that didn’t exist, had never existed.

And in that abysmal, exit-less space there was only one voice, frail and girlish as if it were coming from the child I could not remember ever being, asking me hysterically, Who am I?

Who are my parents? How could I have not realized this sooner?

How could I be living the middle of a life without having lived the beginning of one?

A muted, choking sound sprang from the back of my throat, my heart pounding, my ears ringing, the night a stage tilting into darkness, and I tried to resist, to grasp onto the railing and steady myself, but I could no longer see it, my vision growing blurry, blurrier, then black.

My body slipped from my hold, as if it no longer belonged to me, as if it weren’t really my body. As if I weren’t really here.

But I was here.

This was real.

I was real.

Wasn’t I?