She had learned to rest between steps, to make way in such a paced manner that she was never as exhausted as she had once been.
“I used to dance,” she told him under a heavy, clouded sky. “But after that night, I decided it was easier to move more slowly.”
“But you’re not the person I want to know anymore,” he said. “The dancer’s the only one I loved.”
It was the first time he’d said such a thing the whole time she’d known him. It was the first time he’d made her cry.
Here is what I remember: I asked the flight attendant for another bourbon and ginger every time I finished the previous one, I played the same song on my CD player until it embedded itself in my brain, and before we landed, Air Canada played the first 2/3 of Some Like It Hot, which isn’t nearly enough for satisfaction.
My carefully constructed life had already crumbled well before boarding. But 10 years later, I want to hold that girl’s hand and tell her: You are not flying into the end of your life. You are flying into the beginning.
“This is so very interesting,” I said.
“How does it feel?” he asked. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I can’t tell you right now,” I said.
I’ll be able to tell you later, I thought, after it has all filtered through the layers of charcoal and earth that make up my heart.
I’ll be able to tell you later, I thought, after I’m not looking directly into your eyes.
In the morning, she saw how many bruises he had left behind.
Just noting souvenirs, she said, pointing at one, then the other.
I’m sorry, he said. But I couldn’t have helped it if I’d wanted to.
No apologies needed, she said. No apologies needed at all.
She wound her way, turn by turn, through the streets of his neighborhood. She still remembered the code to his apartment building, though she hadn’t been there in years. It was rainy that night, the whole world slippery under her tires.
Turn by turn, she told herself stories of the life they’d hoped to lead. Turn by turn, she covered familiar ground.
She didn’t have a destination. She was only passing through.
They sang in words she did not understand, but she clapped her hands anyway, caught up in zealous rhythms and charged melodies. This was what she had flown so far to find: this music played on a night so humid it curled her hair and left her entire body damp. She had returned to life, finally, after everything that came before. Drums, horns, voices lifted her above all the rest of it, above everything she had run from.
Are you crying because you’re sad, or because you’re afraid? she asked.
I’m not crying, he said. I’m just trying to figure out the difference between what you think you see and what you know.
That makes about as much sense as anything, she said. It was only later, when she had left him at the doorstep, that she realized he’d been lying the whole time.
100 Proof 