There was a certain passionless hollowness to Echo's kiss as she pressed her lips briefly to mine; under normal circumstances, the innocent expression would have been a comfort but, slouching my shoulders and bending my back awkwardly so as to not touch her with any part of my body other than my mouth, the gesture felt contrived, which made sense because it was, coming on the heels of a one-off sigh passed to Jason in a moment of waning want.
"I haven't been kissed in something like a month," I said.
Jason looked back at me with the tired, emotive gaze of a friend who, despite genuinely caring about my plight, had nothing more to say on the matter. Two nights before, at the bar, telling me over the music about the things everyone else was saying, he had apologized with the same tired look. "Drop her," he said, just fucking drop her and walk away."
I think she's already taken care of that, I'd thought and said, and, in real time, Jason broke eye contact. Echo cleared her throat expectantly; as short as she was, I hadn't noticed her looking at me dutifully, right hand reaching for my head. I bent over and the second split innocuously with our two closed mouths pursed and pressed to one another.
I poured it all out earlier in the day, the sequence of sentences in the Friendster window providing a small jolt of energy into an otherwise dead, dry day. I can see I upset you, it had said, and I tried to read the emotions in the text and found I couldn't, blinded by the ambiguity that makes every thought these days sluggish and half-blind, relieved to see the words in the first place and, yet, frustrated at the absolute lack of resolution they provided. So I replied, as honest as I could while not knowing my own self, and then the wait began anew.
The taste of bananas lingered on my lips, owing to the banana fritter Echo had bought at Voodoo after we jogged out of Dante's. Her presence was a comfort then, her casual, relaxed attitude warmer than I'd ever expected when we'd met, her obstinate sense of humor and unabashed passion for taking each next step into time inspirational. Screwing around at Dante's, she asked me to dance with her and I politely declined, guilty at my distaste for dancing in general, hoping I would get the chance to sing again before the cigarette smoke made me want to leave. I watched her movements, admiring the grace without precision and wishing I could feel anything other than the calmness that had set in on Sunday, because I knew I was seeing something there, ringed in haze and haphazardly-arranged stage lights in an unremarkable situation, something only I cared to see.
I never bothered to thank her for how beautiful she looked; the thirteen pounds I'd lost in two weeks made my body disturbingly susceptible to the cold, and even my own natural warmth couldn't counteract it this time. It would have sounded strange, anyway, coming from someone she knows in passing, and anyway, it's always embarrassing, admitting that the moment you spend looking at or talking to someone is more important than you know it should be, even if it was simply something you needed to perceive.
"I haven't been kissed in something like a month," I said.
Jason looked back at me with the tired, emotive gaze of a friend who, despite genuinely caring about my plight, had nothing more to say on the matter. Two nights before, at the bar, telling me over the music about the things everyone else was saying, he had apologized with the same tired look. "Drop her," he said, just fucking drop her and walk away."
I think she's already taken care of that, I'd thought and said, and, in real time, Jason broke eye contact. Echo cleared her throat expectantly; as short as she was, I hadn't noticed her looking at me dutifully, right hand reaching for my head. I bent over and the second split innocuously with our two closed mouths pursed and pressed to one another.
I poured it all out earlier in the day, the sequence of sentences in the Friendster window providing a small jolt of energy into an otherwise dead, dry day. I can see I upset you, it had said, and I tried to read the emotions in the text and found I couldn't, blinded by the ambiguity that makes every thought these days sluggish and half-blind, relieved to see the words in the first place and, yet, frustrated at the absolute lack of resolution they provided. So I replied, as honest as I could while not knowing my own self, and then the wait began anew.
The taste of bananas lingered on my lips, owing to the banana fritter Echo had bought at Voodoo after we jogged out of Dante's. Her presence was a comfort then, her casual, relaxed attitude warmer than I'd ever expected when we'd met, her obstinate sense of humor and unabashed passion for taking each next step into time inspirational. Screwing around at Dante's, she asked me to dance with her and I politely declined, guilty at my distaste for dancing in general, hoping I would get the chance to sing again before the cigarette smoke made me want to leave. I watched her movements, admiring the grace without precision and wishing I could feel anything other than the calmness that had set in on Sunday, because I knew I was seeing something there, ringed in haze and haphazardly-arranged stage lights in an unremarkable situation, something only I cared to see.
I never bothered to thank her for how beautiful she looked; the thirteen pounds I'd lost in two weeks made my body disturbingly susceptible to the cold, and even my own natural warmth couldn't counteract it this time. It would have sounded strange, anyway, coming from someone she knows in passing, and anyway, it's always embarrassing, admitting that the moment you spend looking at or talking to someone is more important than you know it should be, even if it was simply something you needed to perceive.