It is a Tuesday morning. The year is 2020.
She hands him his coffee, clumsily. He doesn’t look up from writing.
She heads off to work without saying goodbye, and I am so Goddamn tired.
He looks down at his knees and tries to make them twitch, as he hears the gate close behind her.
—
The year is 2004.
He stretches in the afternoon sun, reaching down to touch his toes.
She touches herself in her bathroom, the beginnings of so much possibility awakening in her young mind. She thinks about that girl in school today, the one she defiled so easily, her deft tongue moving in slow circles, her nose breathing in glorious teenage lust. She starts to move her fingers around faster, fuller, really meaning it.
The whistle blows. He begins to run.
Miles away, she sighs and comes down from what she thinks might have been THE orgasm of her middle-school life.
It is another four years before they first meet.
—
The year is 2011.
They step out of a cab, walking hand in hand. It was always taxi cabs and night lights. Cigarettes and drunken walking. And you always take walking for granted; just one of those things you never thought you would miss doing. He asks if she’s ready, and she raises an eyebrow at him. This makes him chuckle.
—
The year is 2017.
It was still cabs — that never changed. He had not managed to be able to drive a car he owned. But that was fine, or so he believed. Headlights illuminate the side of his face, and he knew that that shouldn’t happen.
—
The year is 2008.
He hands out the paper and writes on the whiteboard. Says the lesson confidently (he had practiced) and in a manner that tickled her sensibilities. He looks at each student, knowing they were all staring and sizing him up. Knew he held each and every one in fascination.
The words pour out of him, sharp and poisonous. She shifts in her seat; realizes it is getting very hot. Outside, a steady rain is as a rhythm to the melody of his lecture.
—
The year is 2017.
He would never play on a drum kit again.
He would never walk on pavements again.
She held his hand and lay on his chest, like she always did naked at 4.30am; it would be one of the very last times.
—
It is Tuesday evening. The year is 2020.
She is on her back, her legs splayed out. Tonight’s lover — the first in many many many months — told her he was a teacher. She is on her back looking beyond this guy on top of her as the agony of memory consumes her very being. She doesn’t move a muscle. The tears roll down onto her hair while she waits for him to finish, grunting and panting and so Goddamn noisy.
—
The year is 2011.
They enter the bar, let go of each other’s hand, and it begins. It was never together that they did their best work. But it was together that they brought out the most in other people — at equal parts admiration and envy.
Unstoppable. Invincible. Beautiful.
It was only under a certain light that you could see how bad a fit they should have been for each other. But as was expected of both of them, they had each gotten to where they were supposed to be before speaking even a single word to each other. Before he had ignored her as she gazed into his eyes in class.
—
It is Wednesday morning. The year is 20/20, and so is hindsight.
She steps into their bedroom.
After a long bath, she sits on their bed and lays his sleeping head on her lap. She will run her fingers through his hair just like this for years to come.