She looked at her watch, turning her wrist. I could see the white of her palm.
“It’s time to go,” she said. We both stood up, the chairs beneath us sliding back against the tile.
We stepped outside and the heat hit us like a wave, caught us in our lungs. Our skin prickled. She turned to look at me and I looked back.
“So.” She said.
“So.” I said.
“It’s been nice.”
“Yeah it has,” I replied. “It’s meant a lot to me. I wasn’t sure.”
She tilted her head at me. She didn’t have to ask, we had long known how to interpret one another without speaking.
“Wasn’t sure you were real,” I answered.
She smiled gently. “Of course I’m real. What did you think I was, a robot?”
“Could’ve been. Someone could’ve taken all your correspondences and texts and video chats and put them together with a little AI and…”
“Oh hush.” She laughed, stepped into me and wrapped her arms around my waist with her head on my chest. Her unfamiliar scent surprised me. I should have expected that she might have a scent but the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. The smell was intoxicating in a way only women can be. I put my arms around her. Despite the heat outside, I realized I had been cold.
“I’ll miss you.” She told me.
“I have missed you.” I told her.
She edged back, her arms still at my waist and looked up at me. I saw her pink lips pursed, then smiling and the one thing I wanted most in the world was to kiss her. Hard.
I watched her walk away, out of my life and back into hers. How was it that one could miss so much when you weren’t yet gone? Her hips swayed and I wondered if I had indeed touched her at all in any sense. Then, feeling foolish and awkward for staring, I walked down the sidewalk past the other stores. Rogan’s Shoes. Radioshack. Rorschach House. Firehouse Subs. Qdoba. The concrete was hard beneath my feet. All around me were worn out faces.
I wanted to turn and look at her again. I wanted to be sure. Was this real? I couldn’t. The chance that I would make it awkward was too great. So I walked and walked. I reached the end of the strip mall, turned around, walked back to my car.
As I crossed the parking lot I felt in my pocket for my keys. I pulled them out and slipped my finger through the middle of the keyring and the keys jingled. I held them and the jingling stopped. The air was hot. You could see heat ripples in the air over the hot steel of the vehicles. I looked to the sky. It glistened like a painting.
I knew that if I reached up I could touch that canvas and smear that paint, leaving streaks over everything I knew. For now, though, the lieu suited me; this was not a prison with monsters lurking in the night. I slid my key into my car and turned the lock with a click. I got inside and drove away, leaving the questions behind.
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