The Transmuted (Chapter 12)
As we walked out there was joy in the air, a pure joy like that of travelers when a valley is overcome but before another mountain must be climbed, a mix of accomplishment and optimism undeterred by the practical problems of the future. Now, we were only focused on the finished work behind us, all of the malaise and ennui fell away and we looked upon our time in purgatory with an endearment completely foreign to us a few weeks before. We were inside a lull in the conversation and I looked around at all of us to see smiles plastered on all of our faces with eyes dreamily staring into the future.
We all stood outside the diner for a moment, staring at the setting sun in front of us and basking in its glow. I took a quick glance behind me to find Donald’s arm around Camila, whose head lie on his shoulder. John was next to them with his hands stuffed in his pockets squinting into the distance. Anthony and Beatrix were to my left and right talking across me to each other. I knew I wanted to picture this moment to remember it, knowing that I wouldn’t recollect exactly what was happening but I would always recall how I felt. I heard Anthony’s voice come into focus pulling me back to actuality,
“Hey, don’t you have to head out in a little bit?”
I checked my phone, 4:55. I sighed like one leaving a pleasant dream and moving back to harsh reality,
“Yeah I probably should,” I walked a couple steps in front of the group, “Well I’ll see you guys later.”
“Tomorrow man!” Donald said raising his hand.
“Yeah man, tomorrow,” I said some joy returning and injecting itself into my smile.
I reached my car and shut the door, slumping in my seat for a moment before checking Tinder. I’d gotten a new match, Brandi, a nineteen-year-old girl 10 miles away, and sent her a quick greeting before going to my older messages, opening a thread that I recently received a text from.
“OK, so Godwin Park at 5:00?” A text dated at 3:35 read hopefully.
I sighed again and flipped over to her profile, listlessly scrolling through her pictures. Her name was Cindy, a blonde haired girl that I didn’t remember swiping right on and that I’d matched with yesterday. There wasn’t anything wrong with her but not exactly anything to recommend her either, her face was plain and her smile (in all 8 of her pictures she was smiling) seemed superficial and uninspiring. Our conversation before now was strangely one-sided, one word or one sentence replies from me contrasted with her long paragraphs filled with intricate detail. I asked her if she was free to hang out, a customary gesture done without any real hope of an affirmative reply, but she did reply in the affirmative and set out a plan for our meeting. I agreed without any real conviction, half-expecting the whole ordeal to never materialize, but her confirmation text earlier in the afternoon had solidified the engagement. So now, five minutes before the date was to commence I texted her back,
“Yeah, sounds great.”
The park wasn’t very far away, but I’d driven quite slowly and arrived at 5:07. Godwin park itself was beautiful, especially in the late afternoon, the descending sunbathing the green, open space with a warm, almost buttery light. The trees, though, were my favorite feature of the park, they stood with stumps bent like old men back’s, weathered by the wind of time. Their leaves were plentiful and the trees lined the pathway to a small gazebo where Cindy sat impassively staring at nothing. She looked better in person, her blue eyes accentuated by mascara and her hair stealing some of the light for itself. I walked along the path a few paces admiring the scenery, not feeling the anxiousness I felt with some other dates, and she eventually turned to me and saw me approaching. I can’t explain the look she gave me when she first caught sight of me, it was something like a starving lion finding its prey or, more accurately, a weary archer finally finding her mark. Part of me felt the look was endearing, but for some reason it made me want to turn and walk away that very minute. My feet carried me the rest of the way though and I sat down uncomfortably on the wooden bench that ran inside the perimeter of the gazebo.
“Hey Michael!” she said maintaining the initial look and inching closer to me.
“Hey…” I paused for a moment, somehow her name had slipped my mind.
“Cindy,” Cindy said not looking the least bit slighted.
I forced a smile at her and inched away.
“So how’s your day been?” She asked.
“It went well,” I said settling down a little bit.
“Today was your last day right?”
For a second I was alarmed as to how divined that knowledge but then remembered it had been a talking point of our earlier conversation,
“Yeah, it was.”
“Well, you must be so excited. What with you being off to co-,” her voice caught on the word and she changed lanes, “-to start summer and all.”
I nodded slowly and observed her. There was an expectant quality in all of her words like they were all pregnant with a hope conceived within her heart that all waited anxiously for something in return. She was smiling with her face but her eyes seemed to hold something within them. We were sitting in a silence now and I felt I had to say something,
“How about you, how was your day?”
“Oh, it was great! I got out Tuesday so I’ve just been enjoying the start of my summer.”
Though my question was small, done more out of courtesy than genuine interest, Cindy seemed overjoyed at my asking and for an instant, the searching look was replaced with a joyous one. However, almost as soon as the look arrived, it was attacked by the previous look, slowly transforming the joyous face to a pained one then back to the strange smile of before. The rest of the date went around in that same theatrical circle: she would ask a question (of increasing penetration), I would answer, I would pose the question back to her, she would answer, joy, quick pain, rest, question, ad infinitum. I felt an increasing discomfort sitting at the gazebo because I knew that she wasn’t this melodramatic caricature I was viewing, there was something underneath all of those looks, the truth of which I could feel without knowing the cause.
“So,” she drew in a breath like she’d been preparing for this moment, causing me to lean in, “when was your last relationship?”
Watching her pose the question was difficult, she tried to keep her intentions composed and nonchalant but halfway through the sentence she betrayed herself and by the end, her voice quivered with emotional importance. I suddenly knew why she acted the way she did, my heart surging while all the awkwardness of the date transmuted into pity blended together with compassion. The vulnerability was painfully evident causing any personal emotional undertone from my reply to drop out completely,
“I haven’t really been in a relationship in high school.”
She breathed out a quick sigh of relief and then readied herself for the volley, adopting a mostly straight face. I asked the question quickly rushing through it as to make the blow as painless as possible,
“Whataboutyou?”
Her face remained straight but her words were pained,
“Well, it’s funny that you ask. My last relationship ended a while ago, we’d been dating since high school start… started and… well...”
“We don’t have to talk about if you don’t want to,” I interjected.
She looked at me like I just saved her life, inching towards me until our legs were touching each other. Her smile was gracious and her hand reached for my hand, and I felt I had no choice but to give it to her. Her hand was warm and delicate, dewy with newly created beads of sweat. Her face was close to mine, right under my shoulder and I looked down into her eyes, two oceans with a storm that had just passed through. Suddenly she closed her eyes and moved slowly up towards my face, lips slightly open and wanting.
I knew how vulnerable she was, and how truly vulnerable I was and knew that I shouldn’t take advantage of it. I knew that we were two unfinished puzzles hoping, in vain, that the other would complete our partiality. I knew I only wanted to do this because I was lonely and weak and that I wouldn’t allow things to progress further than this one afternoon as long as Mary still walked the Earth. I knew that if I did this she would be happy for now but even more broken when she figured out that I wasn’t him, whoever he was, and that I didn’t even have the decency to pretend to be him after today. However, I was too far in the moment to get in my own way and I met her with all the loneliness and frustration I held turning into a sweet passion on her lips, and for a moment there was nothing except us. Then the objections came streaming in my head, making every passing second of our embrace increasingly more painful. Nevertheless, I continued, trying to convince myself that I was doing this for her but knowing the truth. I opened my eyes for a bit to see how she looked. Cindy was locked in the passion, using each kiss to slowly try to pull herself out of her hole, the same way a climber uses footholds. Part of me wanted to stop it immediately and get away as quickly as possible to try to stop the future wound from becoming too great. Instead, I allowed things escalate, leading her hand-in-hand to my car, escaping to the backseat for protection. We were able to escape the prying eyes of the outside world, but the security only made us more insecure, the cover only accentuating the problems the other couldn’t fix. Yet we still didn’t stop, trying desperately to fill the empty space with the all the passion two lonely souls can muster.