Ouroboros
She smiles at him, a smile that never fails to bring a matching smile to his face.
"Anyway, I'm a bit farther back in the plane, but maybe we should get coffee if you're going to be in town for a few days?"
-
Normally, he'd work through the flight, but instead he fingers type her name into his email search, and he remembers. The words. The chats. The stories they wrote for each other; the stories they wrote for themselves and schools they were applying to. St. Paul's and Dunworthy, the Empire of Ice Cream, and more, ones known only to them, ones they never showed the world.
Thirteen rows back, perhaps she is doing the same.
Some sixty emails across six years. He closes his eyes for a moment and is standing outside two cars outside of a movie theatre, again, uncertain, hoping, saying the right thing as he hides away the sadness.
It's the right thing to do. He understands. Of course. She should see other people. She's going somewhere new. It's only rational.
Years afterwards, they both write about this moment, and their regrets.
-
Eventually, the two of them do get coffee. It is everything and nothing. There is so much there that is so familiar, habits that they know of the other, phrases that they are used to and haven't heard in so long. And yet, a distance between them: calculated, pre-determined, arms-length and no closer. Even the hug is short, by mutual agreement.
Their conversation is animated, cheerful, and wanders over everything they're doing and everything that they've done, pets, accomplishments, updates on mutual friends. The two of them take turns steering the conversation away from anything that references the past, anything that references the stories they wrote, anything involving their emotions for each other.
It is successful. It is exhausting.
The pastries are good. The weather is good. Their families are good. Their lives are quite good. They part as friends.
They sort-of-kind-of strike up conversations afterwards, though, as with all of these attempts, it doesn't last.
-
At some point, he realizes that it is always this on-and-off-again dance.
"Closure," he says to her, some day.
"Closure?" she asks.
"We wrote a lot of stories - while we were young. When everything ended in a bang, or a happily ever after, a _something_ that was a period. An exclamation point. Sometimes it was happy, and sometimes it was sad, but whatever it was, it was final. But for us - we never... it never felt like we ended our own story. We kept writing things where it just sort of... where there was always a hint. A continuation. A possibility."
"We did, though. We married other people. We moved on," she protests. "Our lives don't intersect anymore, except for-"
"Except for when it does, when we bump into each other, when we refuse to talk about the past, when we look at our lives from a decade ago and wonder?"
"Except then."
"Our relationship ended a long time ago, but it was never... final. It still doesn't feel that way."
"No, it doesn't."
"Well?"
She can only shrug.
-
He's late for his flight. Or rather, if you asked him, he's always perpetually teetering on that edge of being late, without ever really being late. It's been some five years since he's missed a flight... but it's also probably been about as long since he arrived more than five minutes before boarding starts, and as traffic inches forward, he gets a sinking feeling. Should've left earlier.
It's probably why he doesn't recognize her when his eyes skip over her in line, doesn't even think to look up as he's rushing to his seat, and only looks up, confusedly, when he hears his name uttered softly, almost quizzically.
When he sees her, though - for someone that prides himself on being calm in every situation, the flickering of emotions on his face is not that. It has to be obvious to her, though it's-
"-been too long," she finishes. She smiles at him, a smile that never fails to bring a matching smile to his face.
"Anyway, I'm a bit farther back in the plane, but maybe we should get coffee if you're going to be in town for a few days?"
-
Normally, he'd work through the flight, but instead he fingers type her name into his email search, and he remembers. The words. The chats. The stories they wrote for each other; the stories they wrote for themselves and schools they were applying to. St. Paul's and Dunworthy, the Empire of Ice Cream, and more, ones known only to them, ones they never showed the world.
Thirteen rows back, perhaps she is doing the same.
Some sixty emails across six years. He closes his eyes for a moment and is standing outside two cars outside of a movie theatre, again, uncertain, hoping, saying the right thing as he hides away the sadness.
It's the right thing to do. He understands. Of course. She should see other people. She's going somewhere new. It's only rational.
Years afterwards, they both write about this moment, and their regrets.
-
Eventually, the two of them do get coffee. It is everything and nothing. There is so much there that is so familiar, habits that they know of the other, phrases that they are used to and haven't heard in so long. And yet, a distance between them: calculated, pre-determined, arms-length and no closer. Even the hug is short, by mutual agreement.
Their conversation is animated, cheerful, and wanders over everything they're doing and everything that they've done, pets, accomplishments, updates on mutual friends. The two of them take turns steering the conversation away from anything that references the past, anything that references the stories they wrote, anything involving their emotions for each other.
It is successful. It is exhausting.
The pastries are good. The weather is good. Their families are good. Their lives are quite good. They part as friends.
They sort-of-kind-of strike up conversations afterwards, though, as with all of these attempts, it doesn't last.
-
At some point, he realizes that it is always this on-and-off-again dance.
"Closure," he says to her, some day.
"Closure?" she asks.
"We wrote a lot of stories - while we were young. When everything ended in a bang, or a happily ever after, a _something_ that was a period. An exclamation point. Sometimes it was happy, and sometimes it was sad, but whatever it was, it was final. But for us - we never... it never felt like we ended our own story. We kept writing things where it just sort of... where there was always a hint. A continuation. A possibility."
"We did, though. We married other people. We moved on," she protests. "Our lives don't intersect anymore, except for-"
"Except for when it does, when we bump into each other, when we refuse to talk about the past, when we look at our lives from a decade ago and wonder?"
"Except then."
"Our relationship ended a long time ago, but it was never... final. It still doesn't feel that way."
"No, it doesn't."
"Well?"
She can only shrug.
-
He's late for his flight. Or rather, if you asked him, he's always perpetually teetering on that edge of being late, without ever really being late. It's been some five years since he's missed a flight... but it's also probably been about as long since he arrived more than five minutes before boarding starts, and as traffic inches forward, he gets a sinking feeling. Should've left earlier.
It's probably why he doesn't recognize her when his eyes skip over her in line, doesn't even think to look up as he's rushing to his seat, and only looks up, confusedly, when he hears his name uttered softly, almost quizzically.
When he sees her, though - for someone that prides himself on being calm in every situation, the flickering of emotions on his face is not that. It has to be obvious to her, though it's-
"-been too long," she finishes. She smiles at him, a smile that never fails to bring a matching smile to his face.