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"Well, you just weren't patient."
That showed her. Lance was able to pierce her deepest fear from within his cozy recliner - modern and stylish inside his slate stone floor and arched beamed ceilings and floor to top windows perfectly clean with no streaks viewing the gorgeous flora and water from the river eddy.
Her hair looked like an unbald Benjamin Franklin. she was still heavy, but maybe not as much. She was there again. She had already been there a month before. At Karen's party the beautiful tall - but not fussy - blond asked "so, do you live near here?" She had seen her at the pier party - where the poet's band played.
on on.
It was easier to call herself Narcissi, but mostly because Kristen just seemed too personal. Besides, this wasn't a documentary. It was meant to be art.
It was hard to concentrate but better than it had been. It used to be just loss and sorrow. Now, it was bored emptiness. It was nice to be in wilmington. it was great to eat oysters and smoke gas station pot and sit by rivers and think think think.
about what might have been.
She didn't answer him - didn't respond - when he marked that she wasn't patient. She had let Leon furtively jet like he liked doing when shit got too... much.
Let him.
she spit that out of her mind.
"look, he wasn't like others. I've rarely met a brain like his. He sucked at sex, but that was only because he never risked one vulnerable hair. I was in. I tried. I got super confused when it didn't work out. It seemed like we were a match."
Lance looked at her, "yeah. we liked him." Claire piped in, "yeah, he was fun to talk to. Why did you have to mess it up."
Narcissi smiled. what choice.
Lance continued, "you know what I really liked about him?"
"what?"
"that he liked his job. it's so rare to meet someone that actually likes their job. I love my job, and he loved his."
"yeah, he looked at it as making little movies, and he loved being the boss - the person people asked opinions of."
"yeah. and he was smart, but there was something about him. Maybe it's a nut that can never be cracked."
"Maybe it's an empty nut."
Her biggest crime was that she had been afraid.
The last time she was here, she had texted him for hopefully the last humiliating time: "I love you. Not that it matters." (it mattered).
He never responded. It was his schtick.
Wilmington hadn't been as horrid as she had experienced it last time. It could work. She was willing to visit the old haunts. At Elijah's she had six oysters - not twelve - and alas the mignonette sauce was not really good, and an old couple with boring ass conversation was sitting in their place. Otherwise, she would have of course plopped on top of ghosts. She could only take a glass of dry white wine. she took a foto then moved on.
Down the river and to the place she hoped would have no people. It was a Thursday.
and then she got high.
it was nice.
she enjoyed not having shame drive her every move.
she enjoyed a reprieve.
and it was lovely to have jungle come out. It was even lovelier when Lance texted her, "wow, that's a score. he never comes out anymore."
but she was novelty.
she didn't let it pump her up. She would have enjoyed cuddling someone in her silk pajamas - probably not fucking - but there were no takers. The champion refused her invitation due to "plans".
Jungle and she went to the open mic night at the comedy club she had taken Leon. It hardly hurt a bit.
why couldn't she have felt as safe with Leon as she felt with Jungle.
she didn't have anything to prove with jungle. He had already seen her broken.
she was always on trial with Leon.
she didn't mind explaining.
ever.
"that's my biggest fear - that I called it before the hand was ripe. that I was wrong - that he did like me - that I fucked it up because I got terrified and wanted some control. oh well."
"Oh well. There's always the Champion. he likes you."
"I'd take that distraction, but I don't believe you." she pushed her hair back and looked outside, "if he likes me, it's moving like a glacier. and I'm tired of hoping."
"are you now?"
"fuck you."
they really laughed.
She ate some of the breakfast casserole Lance had made and watched the rain. she loved rain. It never rained in macon anymore. it pissed her off.
"what time is your plane again?"
"it's 4:30."
"I can take you to the airport. We can drop you off on the way to the pig picking."
"I appreciate it."
at the airport, she threw away the pot just before she got to the gate - mortified that she had almost forgotten it. when she got home, the broken lighter was still in her purse. She wondered if the joints would have been too. Oh well, they'd have been smoked by now.
That night, she got a text from the supplicant distraction in her shitty hometown. She didn't read it until the next morning. It was something about wanting sex with her and being ashamed to still want it.
She understood what wanting someone who didn't want her was like. No shame. The shameful part was the repetition. she had done that too. It often freaked her out - what if Leon felt the same nothing.
the autumn winter shrubs outside of her writing window were fragrant. the bees were fat and busy on it.
as bees do.
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