the yearningest mofo this side of west egg

I just met the love of my life. It was on a bus, of course.

I wake up late this morning and wade through the shower-curtain forest of drying laundry, pick out a floaty cream-colored skirt I always feel most summery in. I get out the door with my hair still wet, tendrils beginning to curl like honeysuckle shoots. I don’t know how it’ll turn out. I don’t know how anything’ll turn out.

One of those days where the sun lays heavy on your skin. I know by mid-afternoon I’ll feel lazier than a city-zoo lion, but in the freshness of morning, I’m happy to be alive.

Small herd at the bus stop, shifting their weight from foot to foot, waiting waiting waiting.

The bus pulls up, and I hang back to leave room for people who have been waiting longer. But a young man stops and ushers me in front of him. Late twenties, I’d guess; angular jaw, small mole on his left cheekbone; plaid button-down shirt tucked into a pair of jeans, brown belt. Imposing as oatmeal. One look and you could see this was the kind of guy so placid he didn’t even mind middle school.

I don’t know why this is the kind of man I like. But experience tells me again and again that it is.

There are only two seats left on the bus, in the five-seater in the back. I grab the seat between the middle and the window, and this guy takes the middle seat, next to me. My music’s on loud enough that I don’t hear when he tries to get my attention; I look up and find him hovering above the seat next to me, delicately moving aside a flounce of my skirt I’d forgotten to tuck away.

“That’s the thing with skirts,” I apologize, one earbud out. He smells like sweet sunbaked grass.

“I just didn’t want to pin you down.”

I keep the earbud out, in case he wants to talk again, but he pulls out a worn leather-cover Bible and reads a few verses to himself. I reach into my bag and pull out the short story I’m working on drafting, a weird little reflection on Massachusetts and octopi and small towns and making out in storage units and the ache of impatience. I look at him a few times. His lips twitch a little when he reads.

His phone rings, twice, and he takes the calls quietly. When he reaches in his pocket for his phone, he jostles my hip a  little. This does not make me anxious.

A few stops later, the man in the window seat next to me moves, and for the sake of decorum, I take his old seat. Not five minutes in, though, a heavy drop of cold water plinks down on my collar bone. I jump sideways, and my shoulder catches this guy.

“Air conditioning leaking?” His voice is thick but nasal; the apex of the nasality is the exact note of stainless steel scissors whining across a piece of curling ribbon. Is he married? Does he have a girlfriend? Is he on his way to teaching summer Bible camp?

It always seems so pointless, speculating on other people’s lives. There are things he wouldn’t guess about me by looking. There are things about me that, if some people knew them, would guarantee they could never love me. I’m never going to find out this guy’s name.

I get off the bus a few stops early, to walk past the heavy construction traffic. Even taking a detour up a little hill, I beat the bus to my office, and as I’m waiting for the traffic light to change, the bus scoots ahead and I see him sitting in the back, leaning forward with his arms braced on his knees. He looks serious.

Saying goodbye always feels so heavy. But we see people for the last time ever, every day, non-stop. You think you’ll never forget, but you do. You kind of have to.

Tagged as: but seriously guys don't tuck in your shirts. you look like a total dork., if this guy happens to read -- wanna go out sometime? i'm super good at awful first dates., obviously the horrible secret to which i allude is my love for disco. you guys i LOVE it., relationships are 100% better when they're just mental, then i started thinking about how long it would take before the novelty wore off of each other and i got depressed, this is obviously in no way a metaphor for my ambivalence about leaving boston (or a reflection on any other relationships i've had here)