and at some point

two strangers will walk past each other on the street

and know each others birthdays

---

It’s April, but I’m still wearing my puffer jacket. And yours is black now, not green. I know the ending of this story because I wrote it. It is messy and incoherent, but the finale is absolute. I have made up my mind, after thinking it through, knowing you will agree with me – as always – regardless of my decision. I abide by the speed limit on the way to your house.

There is something dying – or already dead –

It had been gnawing at the edges of our love all this time, and now it starves. Facing the consequences of one’s actions has always been direct and never pleasant. Eating and starving, living and dying – we all live at the brink of a certain inevitability. I have peered over the edge, and I am now ruled by a fear that incessantly hangs before my eyes like a veil. But he, having lived in darkness this entire time, doesn’t notice.

The branches of that tree in your front yard reach toward gray skies. There is nothing budding, I realize as I pull into your driveway, and it might as well be dead. I know you will exit the house from the garage, so I will pretend to look elsewhere as you open the car door. I try not to be too friendly as you address me with a polite “Hello,” like you always do. I aim to be curt, but not rude. I know that we both know the next few hours will be difficult. I park a couple of streets down from your house so that your mom won’t see us while she walks the dog.

A scent so familiar it could topple me over. A pink desk and a blue desk, back-to-back. Rough fingers dancing on ivory keys. Matching socks and repeated outfits – a kind of order that isn’t for show.

The dog has stopped barking for a while and the house is gray. It’s too cold for me to take off my jacket, but he seems to be doing fine in just a sweater. My bag thuds to the ground and I struggle to put my charger into the outlet. He sits, unbothered, exactly 7 metres away from me.

I struggle to get started on work.

We switch to the backseat as rain starts to fall. Spring seems to be taking its time this year. Condensation builds and the windows fog up. My jacket isn’t warm enough to shield me from the accumulating cold in the unheated car, and I shiver involuntarily. I imagine you are warm as usual.

I stumble through a series of thoughts that I had unsuccessfully attempted to organize a couple hours earlier. I try to say everything vital before I become too weak to continue. Even though we both know it’s over, I know that I have to be the one to say it. Those words are the first that I manage to choke out. Everything afterwards is inconsequential. I do most of the talking and you listen. A couple of hours pass, and you hug me for the last time. Your thumb runs over the back of my hand for the last time. I drive you back to your house and you take my heart with you. I nearly collapse at the wheel. The rain has stopped but the sky is still dark.

I don’t tell my mom what happened.

A scene plays in my head. I am thirty-five or forty. I still smile with crescent eyes, and I am still worried about my weight. Twenty years ago, I told myself I’d be dead by now. But I have made it this far running on fumes, and I am inclined to keep going. My children run around. They dig up old photographs and inevitably ask – “Who’s this guy with his arm around you?”

And when I tell them that it’s someone who I used to know, the used to will burn itself into my mouth. And it won’t be blistered anymore, but I’ll have a habit of running my tongue over that spot.

I don’t think of him anymore.

I don’t think of his family’s confusion.

I don’t think of his left hand writing.

I don’t think of his scrolling gallery.

I don’t think of us hugging in the backseat.

I don’t think of that house with the skylights.

I never think of him.