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She starts to get the picture I am not interested in and walks away.
“Hey, Stevie.” Why I call after her, I don’t fully know. Maybe it’s wanting to be wanted, even if you don’t want them.
“Yeah, Enzo?”
“Curl your fingertips, keep them tucked in to keep them out of the way.” When she doesn’t say anything, I see hope in her eyes and want to die.
“Could you show me?” The perk in her eyebrow makes me nod and stare back at the vegetables I murder with every slice, wishing it was my past.
Dear Phoebe,
This chick at work likes me, making me hate myself more.
The way she flirts and the way I deflect like I already have an incurable disease, but she wants to play savior.
I hate her because she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know that no one can like me. She doesn’t know about you, Phoebe.
She doesn’t know that there is a woman out in the world, a world I don’t want to participate in anymore. There is you, a woman I wonder what if about.
I think I hate it most because I won’t ever tell her. She doesn’t know you’re real, and I’ve already promised to belong to you. When I figure out how to fix myself.
What Stevie knows is only Enzo, a good-looking guy with battle scars from the kitchen and not from teenage suicide attempts. Long arms covered in Asian heritage artwork because I thought it would make my mother proud. But ended up being another disappointment for her list of reasons I wasn’t good enough.
But, Phoebe, you know all these secrets. The stories I won’t repeat again; they don’t matter now. The sad thing is, Phoebe, you are the only one who turned the ugly memories into meaningful ones.
So even if I kiss common lips, they don’t matter as much as when I performed the act on you. Wishing and wanting nothing to disrupt our chaos, but it was me who decided to destroy a temple. A sanctuary where I told you we could become immortal. Only to remain utterly imperfect humans, destined to live the consequences of a breakup.
For a while, I believed we could be.
Do you remember when I asked you if you had somewhere to be? You smiled at me, bore Phoebe into my soul, and said only the world to see.
Like when Mount Everest starts to melt, you realize how many dead bodies have been uncovered.
It was like that with all my secrets.
And spring has finally come. All my past mistakes washing up on the old snow. And there were multiple bodies with names I don’t even remember.
Since I read Phoebe’s message that night in Hawaii, I’ve been doing some self-reflection. I tried to back off give her the space she needed to move on with her life. If that is what she wanted. I was only hurting her.
I even reached out to Kassidy because I didn’t want her son to be hurt by how things ended, and I had to leave.
They are visiting her aunt, and I happened to have the day off. I didn’t want anything romantic with Kassidy; she had changed, and I just wanted to see how her son was doing and the new kid. Phoebe realized I didn’t have to hate her; I could forgive her.
Kassidy apologized, but it didn’t matter; it was years ago. I just wish I would have reached out sooner. Because the last person I wanted to see me, after all, this time, was Phoebe when I was holding Kassidy’s son from someone else.
Always wanted to be a dad thought about how I could share my love with them in ways my father never could for me. Every time I imagined it, it was Phoebe, who was my baby’s mother. It didn’t even seem wrong; we were waiting for it to come into the present.
Fate, it was working in ways that confused me.
We walked down Fisherman’s Warf when Phoebe and her assistant were scoping out locations. She was even more beautiful than I remembered. Her hair was longer, if that was possible; two long braids hung around her curves. I knew it was her; I’d learned her habits.
“Phoebe.” I forget who I am with, whose child I am holding.
“Enzo…” Her eyes go to the little toddler in my arms and the person next to me. “And Kassidy.” I’ve never seen Phoebe hate someone as much as she hates my ex-girlfriend. You become a different person when the person you love is abused.
“Do I know you?” Kassidy puts a hand on her hip and the other hand on my shoulder, a classic claiming of property.
Phoebe sees it, but I shake it off.
