Anticlimatic

What a colossal fool I am. Embarrassing myself is one thing but being embarrassed by myself, in the confines of my own mind, is a maelstrom of admonishment and cyclical thinking. What really gets my goat is that despite me remembering the word, the word I just forgot, like an idiot, the word I have been saying wrong for the last thirty-seven years, I can’t even remember what the damned thing is.

It is one thing to forget but, how on Earth do I remember the shame and not the freaking word? I think it has a ‘c’ in it. I think I was using it without the ‘c’. I obviously don’t think about it enough.

“Tom, are you okay?”

Corrinne was looking at me with concern written across her whole face, tight pinched brows, wide eyes, locked in deep connection with me and my furtive glance. Their blue-grey gaze, sharp as marble but fighting for my side, it seems. Her lips, also tight, curl up to one side with a sympathetic twist. How can she be so nice to an idiot like me.

“Hey.” She calls to me again, in a tone that almost threw the tears into my eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot.”

“Woah now, where did that come from?” Of course, she doesn’t remember. I probably mess up so often that it is commonplace to her now. “Is this because you were wrong about ‘anticlimactic’ earlier?” I can’t stop the groan that wails out from me, nor my head from falling loose on my neck. “Don’t beat yourself up over that.”

“Now, there’s a notion.” I mumble into my palms.

As I hold my palm shield to my face, I hear a soft whimper from Corrinne. I force my head up to look at her; force myself to see her. She looks away from me and wipes her eyes. Between a sharp, snotty intake of breath, she says, “I’m okay. I’m okay, I just hate to see you like this. You are so hard on yourself, and I just want you to be okay. I want to look after you, but sometimes it gets to me.”

I reach out to her, wrapping my arms around her and remembering about all the times she has helped me. How I always seem to make it about myself. She needs me too. “No no, it’s okay.” I shush her, stroking her hair and gently rocking us back and forward. “I’ll be okay, I promise. What a colossal fool I’ve been.”