THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013
AFTERNOON
The room is dark, the air close, sweet with the smellof us. We’re at the Swan again, in the room underthe eaves. It’s different, though, because he’s stillhere, watching me.
“Where do you want to go?” he asks me.
“A house on the beach on the Costa de la Luz,” Itell him.
He smiles. “What will we do?”
I laugh. “You mean apart from this?”
His fingers are tracing slowly over my belly¹. “Apartfrom this.”
“We’ll open a café, show art, learn to surf.”
He kisses me on the tip of my hip² bone. “Whatabout Thailand?” he says.
I wrinkle my nose. “Too many gap-year kids. Sicily,”
I say. “The Egadi islands. We’ll open a beach bar, gofishing?.?.?.”
He laughs again and then moves his body up overmine and kisses me. “Irresistible³,” he mumbles⁴.
“You’re irresistible.”
I want to laugh, I want to say it out loud: See? Iwin! I told you it wasn’t the last time, it’s neverthe last time. I bite my lip and close my eyes. I wasright, I knew I was, but it won’t do me any good tosay it. I enjoy my victory silently; I take pleasure init almost as much as in his touch.
Afterwards, he talks to me in a way he hasn’t donebefore. Usually I’m the one doing all the talking, butthis time he opens up. He talks about feeling empty,about the family he left behind, about the womanbefore me and the one before that, the one whowrecked his head and left him hollow. I don’t believein soul mates, but there’s an understanding betweenus that I just haven’t felt before, or at least, not fora long time. It comes from shared experience, fromknowing how it feels to be broken.
Hollowness: that I understand. I’m starting to believethat there isn’t anything you can do to fix it. That’swhat I’ve taken from the therapy sessions: the holesin your life are permanent. You have to grow aroundthem, like tree roots around concrete; you mouldyourself through the gaps. All these things I know,but I don’t say them out loud, not now.
“When will we go?” I ask him, but he doesn’tanswer me, and I fall asleep, and he’s gone when Iwake up.
FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 2013

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