Jenny

(Fall 2021)

Edward Hopper, Nighhawks, 1942

You look at me across the booth. My nail scratching patterns into the wax-coated table, each tick a silent scream—I'm sorry. I love you. I'm sorry.

That diner is a liminal space, suspended between what was and what never will be. We know our waitress by name, I know the cook makes eggs over easy better than scrambled, I know why they don’t buy orange marmalade anymore, I know three-quarters of the people just came from our church, I know you’ll drink three coffees before we leave. Black, one sugar, no milk. I just say, water’s fine, thanks. The walls sweat familiarity.

Tap, tap, tap. Your foot into mine under the table. Brown shoes, gray slacks, blue button up, your hair-combed a victim of the morning wind. I bring my eyes to yours; you’ve always had my full attention.

My pulse shouts so loud I’m sure you hear it. Ba-bum. As if my heart is bruising my skin. I shift in the booth, but my thighs cling to it in all of its awful, chartreuse glory. How many people have sat here before us? How many times have we? Over laughter and hunger and peace and silence? All of it routine in its sharedness.

Jenny, you say smiling—all teeth, where’s your head at?

But I’ve been here. Since the beginning. Since our eyes aligned across that friend of a friend's party—you called it fate, I called it inevitability. Since you told me you loved me that very first time, back when you still trembled sweetly. Since you said it wasn't your fault, that it would never happen again.

You promised.

But it happened again. Because the bruises on my skin aren't from my pounding heart. I want to close my eyes whenever you look at me like this: fiery with love. The flames lick and jump, with more conviction than me. You speak of warmth, but threaten to consume.

I feel myself tripping into the gravity of hearts. The physics of it all. Excelsior! you used to shout to me, sending a grin over your shoulder before we'd push forward through the sun. I’d feed off that brightness of yours, hoping it would hold me over through the bad times. Now I feel myself folding in like some dying star.

I still haven’t said a word. The wax beneath my fingernail thickens. The time has come to be brave.