The What Already Was

She agreed to meet him for non-descript after-work outing, i.e. post-breakup peace talks subtitled Fool Me Twice. That's right, against all odds and even more good council, she was considering reunification.

"After all," she reasoned as she waited for the buzzer to ring, "he loves me more than anyone ever has -- and actually wants to take care of me."

Every day for the past week, she'd become more and more into the idea of a reunion. She'd been through a slightly traumatic time just days ago involving accidental painkillers, a dark and handsome Mercedes S Class, and a man old enough to be her father. She was looking for someone to step in and take control. And ol' Mr Insight, for better or for worse, had always been right by her side.

The buzzer rang.

He was dressed in a vintage blazer, a green sweater, and a green tee-shirt. And excess of verdancy. Spring. Rebirth. Hope.

St. Patrick's Day.

She could tell he wasn't sure if he could hug her hello, so she stepped up and was suddenly in his arms. She had loved those arms.

"Couldn't it happen again?" she wondered, grabbing her coat as they headed downstairs.

They ended up at Revival, a small, dank little duplex of a bar just east of Union Square. They sat out in the back, a sort of plywood garden. He drink Jameson on the rocks and she, white wine.

She never knew what kind of white, but neither did the bartender.

"I'm just so glad to sit next to you," he told her, hovering his body near hers, terrified to risk a touch.

"It's nice," she exhaled. "I missed you." The words slipped out of her mouth, and she wasn't even sure she meant them.

"God, if you even know how much I've missed you," he said, reaching to hold her hand. She let him and, without thought, her thumb gently brushed back and forth across his palm.

After a drink, the sun began setting, and the garden sprouted green with the Celtic-philia of a St. Paddy's Parade let loose.

"New venue!" She let him pay, for once, and they headed out in the twilight.

The bar's light caught her attention from across the street. Shoolbred's. They were pulled in by a fireplace glowing on the back wall. Two whiskeys later, they had scooted their big leather armchairs as close as they could. A makeshift loveseat. Peace talks.

"I think we can make this work." Again the words came from a place in her she couldn't quite map. "There was too much good," the same small voice continued. Cait decided to call it Eagle Rare, after the bourbon she sipped between these odd declarations of hope. "Too much good to walk away."

Cait once dated a man who told her, "after the third glass, the wine drinks the man."

She leaned in and the ol' Mr Insight kissed her hard on the mouth.

Who was drinking whom here?

He had ordered a greyhound, made with Grey Goose and fresh-squeezed pink grapefruits. He had specifically requested the grapefruits be pink.

"New venue!"

They walked a mile downtown to East Side Company Bar and ducked into a booth in the back.

"You need to stop playing around and get a real job," she told him. Eagle Rare with a whip.

"I know. I will."

"And not some stupid pipedream pothead job like glass blowing, for God's sake."

"I know. I was thinking -- maybe talk therapy?"

"Jesus Christ."

"I could be a guidance counselor."

She ordered a Bee's Knees.

"Cause that's what she is," he slipped in after her order.

She ordered a Gordon's Cup.

"I could sell my art and gingerbread."

She was definitely drinking too much.

He was keeping pace.

"I will always love you, Cait."

She ordered a big glass of water.

"New venue!"

Home.

He followed her upstairs and she fell into an incredibly deep sleep. The next morning, she awoke to an enormous pair of eyes staring into her own.

"I'm so sorry," were the first words she heard that day.

"What for?" she asked, her breath stale and entirely unbecoming.

"You don't remember?" He was completely taken aback, and for a moment thought this was a dark-humored joke of hers. But her face was entirely curious, entirely free of resentment.

"I punched a hole in your bathroom door."

She checked the door, and sure enough there was a hole as large as a cantaloupe. Suddenly Cait remembered a few lines from one of the first poems she had ever written.

Or how a heart can explode
like a watermelon
run over by a freight truck.

"This is not a good thing." She looked at the crumpled wood, a tossed away lunch bag of a door. "This is not a good thing for us."

"You just," he started arguing, "you just don't communicate to me! I asked you last night what you meant, what you meant when you said we have fifteen layers between us. When you said you didn't feel anything. I asked you what you meant and you just rolled over and fell asleep. You needed to communicate with me!"

"So you punched the door?"

"You wouldn't talk to me!"

She wasn't even mad, just defeated. And annoyed she'd have to go to her own personal hell, Home Depot, to buy a new door in the name of botched communication.

"This is just so sad." Her tone was quiet, even. "Because now there is physical proof of what I should have known all along. We will never be good for each other. This will never work. We will never get back together."

"I will always love you."

"Never..." Her voice trailed off.

He stood up and walked to the dining table, put on his pants, his green t-shirt, his green sweater, his blazer. Verdant again, he walked to the door.

"I guess I should leave."

She didn't look at his face, just at the door and the imploding crater it held.

"Goodbye."