642 Miles Later

It’s not July but the road is familiar and the air is warm. I find myself with the windows down, counting mile markers along route 15 and thinking about the winters that have past and the winters that are waiting for me. I am wondering about the people in Massena and if they are happy and if I will ever be happy in the simple way I saw them that day.

At mile 200 my breathing has caught up with my heart beat and I have a faint curiosity about if you’ve woken up yet and who you are next to. I still see you sitting across from me retelling a rehearsed story, as honest as I'd accept you to be but still completely exposed.

I once said, “I want to know you in a way I would never let you know me.”  As true as my words were then, they are more so true as I cross state lines and it begins to snow. The silence of snow brings about a foreign calmness that I have not felt since I stood on the steps of Adams Street in a sea of black and white and pink.  

I listen to talk radio and pretend I am in the studio, driving past small towns, I am being interviewed and hear myself telling strangers through the airwaves “I thought he had actually killed me, but I just kept driving”.

The End

It was cold for the middle of October and I didn’t wear a coat. I had forgotten how unforgiving the wind can be when you live by the water. You tried to fix everything before you left; the sign on top of the window that I couldn’t reach, the parking lot that wasn’t big enough for my car, the leaky faucet in my bathroom that flooded my tub. You suggested two cheap, but decent, bottles of wine that I will never drink.

I called to tell you thank you and I know this voice-mail will be listened but I also know  you will never hear me. Thank you for the color yellow, wind in my hair & blueberry wheat beer and for reminding me I truly am flawed if not free. I’m sorry all you learned was how to make a decent mimosa and that wet leaves are just as dangerous as black ice.