Exile on main st.
EXILE ON MAIN ST.
Lisa finds herself cataloging the differences between the boy she had spent a weekend with, all those years ago, and the man sleeping in her bed now.
Physically he has matured. Everyone grows old, that’s a fact, and everyone changes with age. That is not what she means.
Dean’s matured in the same way that a skittish colt matures into a beautiful stallion.
The long limbs that seemed out of place and looked like they were missing something when Dean was nineteen, have now filled with muscle and purpose; the skinny face where his mouth took too much space, has filled and become solid, dependable. Trustworthy.
There are some things that she misses.
The bad boy attitude, that she can’t decide if it was a casualty of age or of the life he led; the open laughter, that she remembers so well but has yet to openly experience; the carefree way in which Dean used to make love, now replaced by a attentive lover that notices every detail, but is afraid of baring himself to her.
There are some things that are new.
The hand-shape burn mark on his shoulder, that Dean takes half a year to tell her that is from the angel who pulled him out of Hell; the way he would start to shiver uncontrollably whenever Lisa tried to cook a lobster, something that she gave up when he finally confessed that it sounded like the souls he had tortured in Hell; the way he refuses to drive that car of his, conserving it like a shrine to a life that she knows he can’t go back to, but that he can’t really let go.