Flaw Salad

In January, introspection. Retrospection. An ever-churning mush of whys and what ifs. Something about the season or the cold or the unsettling gap between a new year and a new age—the weeks preceding my birthday bubbled with dread and ennui.

My fingers typed the words before I understood their message. An invitation. My last love.

We sat across a table in the too-bright coffee shop, and he was foreign and familiar. His soft eyes met mine with a kindness I’d missed, a singular gentleness I’d failed to find elsewhere. He smiled, and his flawed teeth were beautiful. His unshaven cheeks were beautiful. His laugh was beautiful.

I blushed and stammered and grinned. He was cool.

His hands on his mug, and I wanted them in mine. Interminable, the wooden plane between us. I wanted to crawl across it and into him. He wanted to lean back and guffaw and tell me about his dates. He didn’t want me.

He lacked urgency, and that was always the problem, with him and with others. Don’t they know time is precious? Don’t they know we need to act fast, to act now, before this offer expires? Infatuation runs out, and we will too. We must be fast. We must be now.

He sat with his belly in one place and his arms in that place and his center there, too, and I squirmed like a ferret or a snake.

I hugged him goodbye. He didn’t break the embrace. He let me hold him, and I felt his terrible patience. He would stay until I finished.

Was I done? I had to be. I found no answers in him.

January remained cold, and I returned to the curious eyes of strange new boys. Warmth seemed a long way off.