Square One

He’d waved awkwardly, peach skin a messy blur just beyond my face as he looked at each of my eyes for any sign that I was listening. I blinked and smiled with a weightless laugh, which satisfied him, but without weight a laugh doesn’t have value, does it?

No, I wasn’t truly there at all.

I didn’t want to be rude. Honestly, I looked forward to the next male connection. But I couldn’t get over it: his question, “What’s your favorite color?”

It wasn’t a bad question. Many married men do not even have an answer prepared for those words. But suddenly I wasn’t there, and I was here. With you.

“The countertops? Will they be white marble or cherry wood?”

“I suppose it doesn’t matter, so long as I can cook our two girls breakfast while you hold my waist behind me. So long as you keep looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

You grinned knowingly, though. You knew how your eyes heated and glowed. How you smiled so soft and precious. How you made my heart skip and shudder at the pace of your laughter.

What is my favorite color?

It used to be green, deeper than a sea of grasses in spring. Than basil or pine. Those glowing green eyes.

But it hurts to think of green anymore.

“I wish it was winter,” I blurted.

He had been talking. Had been in the middle of the word job or food. It was natural that he was confused.

I continued, “I like to see the world reset. In the winter, I mean. When everything dies, and you know it’s only a matter of time before it all grows back again.”

He nodded slowly, and I felt my cheeks warm as I grabbed my coffee and pretended to sip at it.

Painful. It was painful to seem like I'd been listening to him for the last fourteen minutes and forty-three seconds when I couldn't even recall his name. I wanted to feel what I once felt for you; I couldn't wait to feel as if I belonged in another's embrace again. But I didn't want to wait. I didn't want to start over.

I didn't want to learn his name or talk about favorite colors or unravel years of carefully and particularly spooling myself into you. To go back to knowing a stranger--not a man--was the most wretched and horrible thing I could think of.

He'd been talking again, this time about the weather in hopes of relating to my randomly voiced opinion about the most freezing, painful time of year. But I stood. The chair screeched in surprise at the audacity of my interruption, and a few heads turned.

As I walked out, the only thing making my stomach dip was the guilt of being such a selfish lover.