cosas

three weeks’ notice

“You’re tan,” he noted. I sat there on the train platform bench, looked up, followed his eye down to my outstretched legs. I was.

“Yeah. I am this year.”

“I just noticed.” I had actually pointed out my pronounced bathing suit tan line a month ago. I remembered this shortly afterward, as the F creaked along, far above 9th Street. A month ago: my birthday eve was a month ago.

At my block, I went home, he went home. I went back out and walked. I walked to 9th Street, to 7th, Prospect, 5th Avenues, to 23rd Street, back to my street, smoking approximately three dollars worth of cigarettes, occasionally gasping air to fight back this lump in my throat, occasionally failing.

And so I realized things. If we spend only two hours in each other’s company, it does not mean I am boring. Or it does. But here I am, and I’d done the same thing with a friend the night before. Heart wasn’t in it. Would rather be alone. Selfish to think he lacks this right. Could’ve called another friend. Continued the night. Didn’t want to. Heart wouldn’t be in it.

There we were, and he was or wasn’t bored for two hours, but in his company I’m happy in a way I want all the time. Maybe it’s a compliment to him. More likely it’s a problem of mine.

If you would like to hear the moral of this tale, I will tell you: don’t make friends with people who are going to move away within months, and especially, above all else, don’t let them make you inexplicably happy.