Back to an Old Place

Well, I thought to myself, that sure looks familiar.

This was yesterday, when I was killing time in between two of my classes. I was sitting upstairs in a lounge with broke-down couches. I was leafing through the papers I'd just gotten from my students when two of them slumped down onto the couch across from me. "Hi!" they said, and they smiled.

One of the students was a boy, the other was a girl. The boy is the type that qualifies as Really Attractive--a little on the short side, but otherwise brilliant. His skin is tan, the power of his smile could be measured in wattage, his eyes are the type of blue that guarantees he will often get laid even if he has no other redeeming qualities than those eyes. The girl is short and spunky. She's always willing to participate. She always says goodbye and have a nice day to me as she leaves the classroom. Her hair is jet-black, her lips are always perfectly glossed.

This girl and her other beautiful short friends are in love with this boy. They surround him in class. They are always giggling and batting their eyes and tossing their hair and finding reasons to touch him on the shoulder, on the arm, on the thin bones of his hand. No one finds more reasons to touch him than the girl with the jet-black hair.

When they spread themselves out across the couch yesterday I pretended it was no big deal, that I could care less that they were sitting across from me. I went on looking at the papers. I pretended I wasn't eavesdropping.

I was completely eavesdropping.

She asked him if he was going to come out to the bar with them later that night.

"Maybe," he said. He didn't look at her straight on.

"Oh come," she said. "It's going to be fun."

"We'll see," he said. Then he made a phone call. Someone was waiting for him in the union. They had homework to copy. He said he'd be over soon.

That was when the girl tipped her body closer to his. She leaned in. Her posture was screaming Stay! Stay! Stay!

They talked for a few more minutes. They laughed and swatted at each other. When he smiled at her the light from his perfect, perfect smile was unbearable. I knew exactly where this was headed.

Finally, he started to gather his things.

"You're going?" she asked.

"I've got to," he said. Then they sat there for a minute, just looking at each other. In complete silence. She smiled, but it wasn't so much a smile as it was a thin line cutting across her face. He reached over and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. Her body swelled. You could actually see it. Her entire self bloomed. He was touching her. My God, he was touching her like that. But then he rose, and her body deflated, collapsed in on itself. "See you later," he said.

She watched him leave, watched him walk down the hall and far away from her. He never looked back.

When he rounded the corner toward the elevator, the girl slouched over. She put her head in a pillow of her hair and hands. I thought maybe she was going to cry. I wanted to put my folders and notebooks away and go sit next to her on the couch. I wanted to gather her up--all that jet-black hair and loose, broken limbs--and hug her, tell her it was okay, he was gone, she should just cry, get it out, get it over with. I imagined what I could tell her. "I've done this before," I would say. "I know it feels like your heart is too big for your chest right now. I know you think it's possible you could die from this feeling, from loving him too much, from him not loving you enough or at all." I felt for her.

What I was feeling most wasn't understanding or sympathy, although they were certainly there. I wasn't thinking, You poor thing. Just cut and run, and do it quickly. No. What I was thinking and feeling as I sat there watching her finally sit up and lean backward, close her eyes, and pretend to sleep--which is infinitely better than crying in front of your English teacher--well, what was going on inside of me was much more complicated, much darker than all that. I was thinking, I'd give anything to go back--to even the worst times, the times where I cried in my car, in bar bathrooms, on my own bathroom floor--just so I could love a person that way again.

While I watched her breathe and try to keep the tears locked behind screwed-shut eyelids, I thought about two Septembers ago, a day I drove up to the place the Wily Republican had moved to after he graduated. He and I had lain on his bed and looked at each other for a long time. Things were said, I'm sure, but I don't remember them. We were holding hands in that way you hold hands in high school: fingers twisted into fingers. Later, we watched television and sat on separate couches. When I went to leave, he walked me to my car. We both stood in front of the driver's side door.

"Thanks for coming," he said.

"Sure," I said, like it was no big thing, when in reality I'd spent an hour picking an outfit, gotten a haircut, and arranged my day around the drive up to his place. He'd moved in the middle of that summer. I'd helped him pack boxes and load his car. I'd folded and stacked clothes. I'd searched for the lids to his grungy Tupperware. I'd waved goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. For the rest of that hot Minnesota summer I sat on the edge of the local pond and repeated song lyrics in my head. I'm wishing my summer away just to see you again, I sang. And I did. I wished my way into July and August and straight into September.

The moon was rising over his shoulder. The night was quiet. I could hear only two things: my heartbeat and the hum of the distant highway traffic. It was an important moment, although I shouldn't have known that then. I shouldn't have known that a few weeks later the Wily Republican would call me up, say he had something to tell me. A terrible, awful something. But somehow I did know.

I wanted to stall. I wanted to keep him outside forever. I wanted him to say, "Let's sit in the car for a little bit." I wanted him to say, "Stay the night, okay?"

I would've. I would've stayed the night, the week, the month, the year. At that one moment in time I would've dropped out of school and left everything behind if he'd just asked me to.

But he didn't. Instead, he picked me up in his arms. I balanced on my toes and he hugged me. He crushed me underneath the weight of his arms, and we stayed like that while the traffic continued to hum, while the moon slid in and out of a veil of clouds. His hand was moving slowly against my shoulder blade. He drew circles against my skin. "Goodbye," he said. "Drive safe."

Then he let me go, let me down. He backed away from me. He waved. Then he turned around and walked away. I eased into my car and turned the key. I watched him go. He never looked back. Several weeks later he called, told me about this girl he'd met, how he was going to give it a go. I could still feel the circles he'd drawn on my freckled shoulder blade. They burned while I cried and cried and he said, "I didn't mean to do this. I really didn't."

But he did. And so did I. And my students were doing it, too. I could see it clear as day. I could see my own face in hers, the Wily's in the boy's. I saw us looking at each other and smiling and running around town and laughing and letting the snow fall down onto us.

And I could've whispered, "I know what you're going through, so let me give you some advice..." and then told her to stop answering his calls, to sit on the other side of the room during class, to tell him she was busy and couldn't see him right now. But I didn't want. I knew it was too important that she go on loving him and that he go on doing what he was doing. I knew there were too many lessons she had to learn about love and what it should be and--more importantly--what it shouldn't be.