Amendments

Something makes me rewrite it, because the details are important. I need to write what's true, even if it means lying. A lie can be more true than the truth. So I sit down with a list of things to piece together, and no notion of how to shape them. Telling this story is like putting a puzzle together face down, so that even when the pieces seem to fit, you don't know if the picture is lining up right.

* * *

It wasn't that he thought badly of me; he just didn't think of me at all.

* * *

Across the table from me at the diner we all went to, he read the paper. In a rare moment, we were alone. "Dover," he said to himself. "Where's Dover?"

"It's the capital of Delaware."

He looked up, reassessed. "Good girl. Five points for you. What about Mississippi?"

"Jackson."

"Napoleon in rags?"

"Go to him now, he calls to you, you can't refuse."

"Esme?"

"Love and squalor."

He smiled. A shift. "Love is a duel."

"Everything is a duel." I looked out the window. "Kerouac, by the way."

* * *

All the dominos leading in, all my years building up, to the crash of his life against mine. The curves of our lives did not match, but they intercepted. And lives can be bent.

* * *

At the beach, we wandered away from our friends. Stopping to stare at the sunset, his hand reached for mine. I reached back, squinting into the orange light. It was the ocean reaching for the sand, waves crashing with a moan and a cry.

* * *

I wanted a battle without an end. I wanted to never win. I wanted to fight. I wanted sex that left bruises, exhaustion, swollen and tender lips.

* * *

In the pouring rain, I was pressed against the granite wall of a public bathroom, his tongue on mine. Breathing through my nose, I smelled only his skin, dark and hot against my cheek. It was Shakespeare. Violent delights.

I was in love with the point of that rock digging into my back as he pushed against me. Pleasure spiked with pain.

"I need you."

His teeth on my earlobes and my nails on his back. Harmony.

We clung to each other to keep warm.

* * *

Everyone seemed confused, shook their heads.

"Unlikely," we were called.

They had no idea.

* * *

On New Year's Eve we went to a party -- a bonfire in a friend's backyard. Under a blanket he slipped his finger into me and I came while staring into the flames, surrounded by fifty friends and strangers. "Our secret," he said, pushing his way deeper. "Yes," I whispered as I came again. "Yes."

He was like that.

* * *

A knock on my window. Wordless, frantic.

* * *

Thinking I was asleep, he rehearsed. I love you. I think I love you. Jaimee, I love you. I'm in love with you. I love you. I'm in love with you. Love. Love. Love. Panicked, I pretended to wake up. He held my face in his hands, "I love you, Jaimee." He had changed the rules.

"I don't think you do. I think it's just lust."

* * *

I am haunted.