chapter one

    you wore a peacoat because you remembered that i liked them, and it didn’t take you long to hold my hand which is nice because he used to always tell me that I was needy, when all i really wanted was a sense of someone else besides myself. you promised me coffee on our first date but it took me long enough to parallel park that we got there just as they were closing, and you reached for the door just to spin us around and you gave me that little smirk and told me not to worry, because you had something better in mind. so i just walked with you, fingers shaking but stuck in yours and legs somehow keeping up and i could smell the chocolate before you even opened the door for me, and when we walked inside there were flowers made out of chocolate and cases and cases of chocolate covered-everythings and you led me right to the chocolate covered strawberries and told me to pick which ones i wanted. i had told you nights before that i hadn’t had them since my birthday. you told me tonight was close enough. 

     you bought me homemade hot chocolate, too. and you carried the box and handed me a neatly little wrapped strawberry and i turned around so you couldn’t watch me take the first bite, and i had chocolate all over my fingers but you held my hand anyway and gave me tissue paper to get rid of what my lips couldn’t. it wasn’t until we started turning down lightly lit side streets that i asked you where we were going, and you told me that i’d just have to see. just wait and see. we walked through the beautiful part of downtown, and eventually i could see the lapping water of a lake, and the road turned into grass which turned into gravel, which led us to a long dock that stretched out over the water. you remembered that i liked those, too. you sat with me on the end of it and asked me about my family while i asked about yours, you told me your mom was one of the best people you knew but that you didn’t see your parents very often. i asked you if it scared you to get close to someone knowing you’ll be leaving for college soon and you said i’m not really leaving. at least you weren’t leaving yet. we’d let the silence sit between us and watch as it planes passed over us and you swore that it was the same one just circling around and around again. there weren’t many stars out, only a few big ones which i focused on many times that night when i couldn’t grasp onto any sort of reality. i asked you what you were thinking about and your hand was so soft on my thigh that i had to focus to hear your words and you told me you were only thinking about the fact that you were on a date with a beautiful girl.

    i kept telling you that i didn’t feel like i was here. and did that make sense? does that make sense? i’m here, i am here of course i’m here but it doesn’t feel like it. i don’t feel like i’m here.

     you pulled me back to lay with you and we just laid there on that dock with your fingers playing through my hair and my own making designs on whatever part of you i could reach, and you kept tightening your arms around me as if i could possibly go anywhere and you just kept asking me what i was thinking, and i just kept asking you what you were thinking. you pulled me up to the edge of the dock and i stood there facing the water and imagined everything beneath it, and you whispered into my neck to just imagine. to imagine with you. to imagine my own little bakery on the most beautiful street of paris, right on the corner, and fresh tulips would be delivered from holland every week and you’d have a regular, pierre, who would come in the mornings and share a croissant. and he would buy lilacs for his wife. he would always buy lilacs for his wife. i just closed my eyes and the only thing i could think to say was that the water was still now.

     you held my hands out with yours as the breeze toyed with my hair and i’d just keep folding you into me every way i could and slipping my hand beneath the band around your wrist. we held our thumbs out to the little sliver that was the moon and decided that it wasn’t in fact always larger than our thumbs like the movie had said, and you told me that there was someone out there holding their thumb up to us just the same, comparing and looking right at one another without looking at anything at all. i turned to you to bury my face in your chest and told you i wanted to go dancing. i’d always wanted to go dancing. you cradled my head to you and i asked you now what you were thinking. i could barely hear myself but you did. so you cupped my jaw and gently, too gently pulled it up to yours and kissed me. and you kissed me again, and another time, and then i was giving you them in return. and after awhile you pulled back and it was quiet again, and you told me that’s what you were thinking about. me too.

all i could say was me too.