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Distilled
She asks me what we are listening to and I give her a carefully cultivated enigmatic smile.
Seventeen years ago: I have discovered a faint interest in girls. There are things going on now that make it obvious that they are different. I've been told not to pull Emma's hair and despite the fact that she kicked me in the ghoulies I've been forbidden from returning the favor. Instead I am told to accept her gracious apology and her mother will explain why she shouldn't do that to boys, in private. She says sorry, I try to communicate that everything is fine and forgiven just with the corners of my lips. She takes immediate offence, thinking that I'm laughing at her apology and she kicks me in the ghoulies again.
Fourteen years ago: I am sat in the darkness, the quietest room at the party with only the coats for company. Anna Jordanova comes into the room as if in response to every teenage yearning I have had in the last year and is suddenly taken aback to discover I am there. I imagine that the light from the crack in the door illuminates only half of my face and I must appear some sort of brooding and deep intellectual to be sat in the dark at a party while Europop music floats through from the main room. She asks if I'm ok, and I give her a smile and slight snort of derision as if to say is anyone? I am about to tell her that I have fallen in love with her when she turns to shout that I'm going through everyone's pockets.
Ten years ago: I have walked her home, she says she's not tired and says she'd like to see where I live so we turn around and head across town again. I won at poker and she told everyone about her sister cutting herself and we talk about these things as we walk. She spies me limping as the shoes rub against my heels and I take off my shoes, lacing them together and slinging them over my shoulder. I feel like Huck Finn, traipsing through life without a care, only to realise that she's Becky Thatcher and is seeing my best friend who had other plans this night. We stop outside my apartment building and she says she'd like to come in. I give her a smile as if to say but you're with Tom Sawyer, and it can never be cherie. That night I sleep alone.
Six years ago: I am new and fresh and innocent in this town, without knowing one area from another. I travel everywhere by Tube to lay the groundwork that will later be stitched together by walking from place to place above ground years later. I don't know any better and watch people on the Tube trains intently as they treat everyone else like ghosts, staring into the far-distance but somehow avoiding collisions. The girl next to me smells nice and looks up from her book. I hit her with my best smile and she looks back down without pause.
Three years ago: There isn't much time, the music is loud, the atmosphere thick with smoke, I barely know her, having filled in all the blanks with flighty fantasy so that she is everything I could ever want. We kiss and the moment is emblazoned into my psyche and will have repercussions that will change everything but tonight is still tonight. She shouts over the music that it would never work and that we live on different continents and I say nothing but answer with a smile. We understand each other perfectly.
She asks me what we're listening to again, asking if I didn't hear her the first time and what's with the goofy grin and I go back to the drawing board.
Jul. 9.2007