Shishi-Odoshi

    Jack never really talked anymore. We used to call each other nearly every single day, our phones stuck to our palms, neither one of us wanting to let the call go. But, nowadays, we text, and our texts are deep and complex, but I feel like I’m waiting for a train that will never arrive, for a tide that will never come in. Jack says he loves me. Jack says he’s there for me. Jack says he’d do anything, I need only ask. I believe I believe him.

    I remember the first time we had sex. The condom didn’t fit, Jack and I were sweaty and nervous, our movements awkward, and we couldn’t go for two seconds without something slipping out of place. I’d always felt comfortable in his arms, I’d always felt safe with him, but he wouldn’t hold me. He was too focused on performing, too focused on getting me off. He had to finish himself, and it made me feel kind of bad. But then he started crying, and he wouldn’t tell me why.

    “Hey, Jack.”

    “What’s up?”

    “Can we just cuddle, like normal?”

    He wiped away the tears, recomposed himself, and gave me a slight, warm smile.

    “Sure we can.”

    That’s when I knew I was in love.

    I don’t think Jack ever thought we would be in a relationship. I’d always found him attractive, I mean, he wasn’t a supermodel, but he was above average definitely. I liked our friendship, I liked talking about all the things we wouldn’t tell other people. But we just kept getting closer, and closer, and closer. By the time we had sex, we were so used to each other’s bodies that it didn’t feel odd, uncomfortable, or out of place.

We met in class, like anyone else, we sat next to each other by accident and there it was, with no manner or reason, we started talking here and there. Little comments, little jokes. Little inklings. Little numbers, little texts, little calls, little hangouts. I don’t know how I ended up telling him about my broken home, and my distant parents, and how long I cried when my dog died. And he said he would come over, if it would make me feel better.

I began to notice something different about his behavior towards me, when I began to realize that I was becoming emotionally dependent on him.

One day, out of the blue, he asked me if I wanted to go to a little garden nearby, maybe a twenty minute drive away. He said it was a garden his parents had taken him to as a kid, and it had been so long, he’d like to see if he remembered it right. He thought I might like to see it, too. In his car we listened to cheesy songs we both secretly liked, we made jokes only we would get, but, mostly, we just sat contentedly, watching the landscape go by, feeling the fresh spring air blowing in from our open windows. I could tell immediately, as we turned off the highway onto a small gravel road, what he was trying to show me, because among all the bare trees that we passed by, a great pink cloud emerged out from ahead, little dots sprinkled among the crisp blue sky. He parked, and when we got out I could hear it. I could hear the absence of noise, idyllic, almost.

“I guess it’s a little early.” He said, looking up towards the nearly bare branches of the cherry blossom trees.

I thought it was just the right time.

We walked, peacefully, through the garden. He delicately held my hand, which I didn’t find strange at all, even though we’d never done it before. We walked under the groves, we walked past the fountains, spraying their crystal crescendos idly. The sounds of water gurgling latent against the sounds of gravel crunching underfoot. He kept looking at me and smiling, like he was expecting to see something in my eyes that hadn’t quite arrived, and I didn’t quite feel comfortable holding his gaze for as long as he wanted to hold mine.

We sat down together on a nearby bench in the periphery of a clearing. In the center was a bamboo water fixture, which kept filling up and then, after a short while, clunk down into the rocks. Every five or ten seconds, clunk. We were both looking at it, just holding steady, hitting the ground, and then slowly rising again to repeat the process, repeat it forever. He put his arm around my shoulder, and I let him, because I didn’t feel like there was anything wrong. He put his head against mine.

“Alex,”

Clunk.

“Yeah, Jack?”

“Alex I think, I think I’m…”

“What, Jack?”

Clunk.

“I think I’m in love with you.”

Clunk.

I didn’t know what to say, but I wasn’t surprised at all to hear it.

I had a big project that I was supposed to be working on, and I couldn’t help but think about him. The pictures weren’t enough, the necklace he bought me only shimmered. He’s been away for so long. I imagine him in bed beside me every night, and I hug my pillows but they aren’t warm like he is. They don’t smell nice like he does. They smelled like fish and unwashed hair. I was so lonely, I felt like crying.

“Hey Jack, are you there?” I texted him, and then, a bit later, “I love you”

He hasn’t responded.