Last Lunch, Reunion of a Sort
She's got a new hairstyle, slightly. She's lost a few pounds, maybe even ten, but you swear that same electricity arcs across the scuffed diner table. It's been over a year. You lied to her, a real doozy, worst one you'll ever tell, the type of regret that hovers over deathbeds. She might forgive you, if time were boundless as the sea on the darkest nights. But you'll never forgive yourself. One day you'll be driving that old two-lane highway out of town, and moments after you pass the Flagler County line your face will spill. You'll scream, “Why'd you do that to a girl like her? Why'd you do that to her?” Spittle will dot your steering wheel. When a car comes by in the other lane, you'll slide your sunglasses on.
Yet she asked you to lunch with her, before she rear-views this town.
She orders two eggs sunny side up and corned beef hash. You order two scrambled eggs: they look more like dried ocean-bottom barnacles than any eggs you've ever seen. But you both agree the home fries are good. You only eat half of yours.
She smells exactly the same.
She tells you she appreciates your existence in the world, that if you were with her you'd actually enjoy going to football games, that you don't belong in Florida any longer.
The whole time, over an hour of instant (re)chemistry and corny jokes only you two can laugh at, you don't have enough guts to tell her “I'm sorry.”
She pulls you close for a full hug by her car door, the same car door she could never quite close to leave for work because the two of you kept necking and smiling and squeezing like teenagers, zero concern about people pointing. It takes all you have to stop your hands from slipping to her hips and staying there. All you have to not brush her cheek and kiss what could've been forever goodbye. But once you remind yourself that you sacrificed her affections long ago with a few false words, your hands numb up. She gets in her car. You immediately regret not looking back.
For parts of the next week, you'll seek distraction in pornography, but her face pressed against yours will always be the last thing you feel.
Yet she asked you to lunch with her, before she rear-views this town.
She orders two eggs sunny side up and corned beef hash. You order two scrambled eggs: they look more like dried ocean-bottom barnacles than any eggs you've ever seen. But you both agree the home fries are good. You only eat half of yours.
She smells exactly the same.
She tells you she appreciates your existence in the world, that if you were with her you'd actually enjoy going to football games, that you don't belong in Florida any longer.
The whole time, over an hour of instant (re)chemistry and corny jokes only you two can laugh at, you don't have enough guts to tell her “I'm sorry.”
She pulls you close for a full hug by her car door, the same car door she could never quite close to leave for work because the two of you kept necking and smiling and squeezing like teenagers, zero concern about people pointing. It takes all you have to stop your hands from slipping to her hips and staying there. All you have to not brush her cheek and kiss what could've been forever goodbye. But once you remind yourself that you sacrificed her affections long ago with a few false words, your hands numb up. She gets in her car. You immediately regret not looking back.
For parts of the next week, you'll seek distraction in pornography, but her face pressed against yours will always be the last thing you feel.
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