History Lesson

For me, it was always Creamsicles.

That favorite flavor that can be a regular part of your life for ages, a delight so accessible you take it for granted. Then one day, years after you've given it up – maybe you outgrew it, or they stopped making it, or you married someone who couldn't stand the mention of it – or maybe for no reason at all – you suddenly remember what it tastes like, and how long it's been since you last had it. The memory of the flavor is immediately on your tongue, and you think, God, I would give anything for a taste of that right now.

That's what it tasted like to have you again.

*

11:29, says the neon clock out in front of the bank. 36° F in bright, warning orange. My hotel is across the boulevard from it, and my tiny standing-room-only balcony puts the sign right in my view. Earlier, I watched the sun set behind it. But the sky growing darker, and time marching steadily forward, eventually started feeling like a countdown. I had to go inside.

I like it better out here, now. Inside, this suite is a tolerable enough 'extended stay,' but as soon as it got dark, I came back out. It got a little claustrophobic in there – and frankly, feeling trapped did nothing at all to help me stay put. To not follow my imagination's rendering of each step. How easy it would be to open the door, lock it behind me. Go down the hall to the elevator, and out the lobby. No one would know, nothing would give me away. I could take an Uber to get there faster, but instead I saw myself walking briskly the few extra blocks on foot. I felt the cold air chapping my lips, my lungs starting to burn, my legs pumping up the sidewalk.

By the time I arrived at your front door, I would have been chilled to the bone, and completely invigorated.

Standing out here in the thirty-six degree air is meeting myself halfway. Maybe if I just stand here and breathe, I can clear my head.

*

I'm not sure what made me think it would be a good idea to come back to this city after I left my job. Maybe it was just instinct, the urge to return to where I came from. Sure, there were reasons back then that I left it as soon as I could, but would I feel the same about it at twenty six as I did at twenty one? How could I know until I found out?

Social media told me you were still living in the area. Not until I asked it, but still. The answer wasn't hard to find, and it was an answer I couldn't proceed without.

But even if I hadn't snooped and found out, I think I would have been tipped off by seeing your ghost everywhere. All these places we used to go together – some of them I pass every day. And I see you, your ghost, sitting at one of the tables out front of the cafe, under the orange awning. Or waiting in line for the doors to open to the theatre downtown for that weird little play we saw. Or I'll be driving over the bridge that overlooks the park along the river, and peep us standing there on the levee, having our first kiss.

Even if I hadn't looked for you, I would have found you.

*

So these last two times we've hooked up, I can excuse. Once was inevitable, come on. And the second – well, that was because once wasn't enough. It'd have to be a lot colder out here for the memory of that night to not heat me right back up. There are still handprints on my suite windows, you know. And I couldn't look the front desk person in the eye when I told him I needed more towels.

Besides, the first time was your fault, if you think about it. Yes, I did decide to go to one of my old haunts for a drink that night, and yes, it was more likely than others to be a haunt we'd still have in common. But you were the one who approached me. If you had just seen me and decided the opposite way, you could have spared us all of this. If you had, then I never would have called you back for an encore.

I guess I do deserve a little more of the blame for that one. Hard to say I feel guilty. But now... now we've each had a turn. Now, one of us is going to act, or not. It's like hookup chicken. If one of us votes in favor of another round, does this become a Thing?

Who's ever heard of a three night stand?

*

I thought I was done having this debate. Wasn't I asking myself the same question not even, what, six weeks ago? Right before my last entanglement suddenly unraveled.

All I wanted to do was fool around with someone new. To distract myself. To prove that I could come back here and not immediately pick up where we left off. It was never supposed to evolve past that.

It just...worked out. That's why it continued so long, way more than three nights. Until the question of a label came up, and neither of us liked the other's answers.

Even so, that relationship was never meant to last. You and I? We have staying power – that's what I'm afraid of. That Velcro effect you have on me, that makes me want to be close to you, get my hooks in you.

There's no other comfort, no sublime satisfaction, like being that close to you. The thing is – every time we're pulled apart again, more damage is done. Loose threads come up.

Case in point: It took me more than a day to recover from our second night together. If our nostalgic magnetism got us the first time, what got us to come back was more like addiction. A kiss, a hit, a flashback like the flavor of orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream.

I still don't understand how, with everything that was just plain fucked up between us, the sex always felt so right it almost hurt. That hardly seems fair.

It's one of the strongest arguments I have right now, except it's supporting both sides. Stay here and avoid a total relapse? Or go have some of the best sex life has ever offered up to me, because it's there?

*

11:49, the bank clock is blinking now. Has it been twenty minutes – has it only been that long? I already know I'm not going to be able to fall asleep tonight. And if I go back inside, into that tiny hotel suite masquerading as a homey apartment, I'm going to suffocate and run from the place gasping. If I go through that front door, I'm done for.

Right now, I'm just relieved this place doesn't come with a stocked minibar. Well, and maybe a little annoyed? But mostly relieved. My nose, ears, cheeks, and lips are already numb with cold. Alcohol would only make it worse. I don't need the sense of invincibility that comes with that kind of numbness. I might just start believing I have nothing to lose.

I'd watch the moonrise, but it's still on the other side of the building. Didn't we do that once? Go up to the top of that hill in the park and watch it come up with music on in the background? Just because I was restless and needed to get out of the house.

Like now. If I drove up there now, what are the odds I'd find you there, too?

Shit.

*

All we have to do is step back from this like adults. It would be crazy for us to get back together. Totally crazy. I have to remember this. Even if it was sometimes crazy good, we were crazy bad for each other. Right?

It's just as much for your good as for mine. I'm just going to hurt you again. You do that to me – turn me into this wanting, needing thing that wants and needs so hungrily that it will take whatever it is offered, and then some.

See, those lifelong favorite foods, those long-forgotten flavors that strike you with sudden cravings? When you finally do get to have them again, the first bite is always the best one. It melts on your tongue and gets into your bloodstream and closes that loop, that insistent need to replay a memory in the flesh. But if you keep indulging, before long, it no longer tastes the same. Time adds a seasoning of its own, changes the profile. It'll never taste as good as you remember.

That's all this is. A craving. I've had a taste, then took a whole bite. I should be able to say no now.

Maybe I should just run over to that gas station over there, see if they have any Creamsicles. I could eat a whole box of them right now.

*

Up close, I can see all the little orange light bulbs that, put together, read like a clock. The display switches over to show the temperature – it's down to thirty four, now. Then a message scrolls past, something about interest rates, and a blinking demand to Stop In Today! to find out more.

The Chevron did not have Creamsicles. "We only carry those in the summer," I was told. Not a December-y kind of flavor, I guess. That only makes me want one even more.

But now I'm out, and on foot. I can look across the four-lane street and pick my balcony out from the dozens lining the hotel façade. There are lights on in some of the other windows, moving silhouettes cast against floor-to-ceiling curtains. I wonder what demons are keeping those people up right now, at...

...11:59 p.m. The colon between the hours and the minutes blinks to the rhythm of the seconds. I can't stand to watch it anymore. Just need to keep walking. Soon I'll be at the intersection: go left, and back to the hotel, empty-handed and no better off. Go right, go further into town, across the river, past the fire station and the twenty-four hour liquor store where you used to buy your cigarettes, and stop at the bottom of your fire escape.

I could do that. And if I get there, and there are no lights on inside, and your car isn't on the street, and I say your name but you don't hear me... I could turn around and walk away.

*

One of your neighbors let me in the foyer as they were coming out with a full trash bag. I'm not sure I recognized them, but did they know me? Do they think I still live here? My name on the mailbox has been taped over, more than once.

I've just come in to warm up. That's it. As soon as I can feel my fingers again, I'll be on my way. I do not need to go upstairs, for any reason.

I watched your window from the street, briefly, after I spotted your car in its usual place. No light on inside, just the spastic blue-white flickering of a TV screen.

Have you fallen asleep watching Netflix again?

Are you cuddled up with someone else right now, enjoying – or maybe ignoring – a movie?

I make a show out of checking my phone when your neighbor walks back in. I half expected a new message from you – "I know you're there, come on up." Or for you to come down the stairs yourself, looking just as train-wrecked as I feel, maybe because you too have been talking to yourself for the last hour, trying to navigate around a mistake. Our eyes would meet in the foyer. You'd look surprised, and then smile – with relief, with knowing, with winning, because it would be a victory for you to know you've lured me here without a word. And without a word you'd whisk over to me, take my face in your hands, press me back against the wall with your victory kiss, then tug on my hair and bite my lip and hold me there with your insistent weight – your reward, my punishment, rolled into one, rolling against the wall...

*

I can hear your movie playing through your door, but I can't tell what it is, or if you're watching it with someone else, or dead asleep on your couch.

This is as far as I go. I can't put even a finger over that threshold without your invitation. If that makes me a chicken, I can live with that. You've gotten me to come this far. The next move is yours. It has to be. The only move left for me to make is to go back down those stairs, back past the liquor store and over the river, back the entire almost-mile I covered to get here. I could take back every step to my hotel room and choke down a couple sleeping pills and let this midnight trek melt into a bad dream.

*

I can't even see your face, just your silhouette in the doorframe, backlit in blue and white.

"There's only one way this can end."

"...Is there?"

*

*

*

You know, you're just as much to blame. If you were a stronger person, if you didn't play just the role that you always have in this script, this wouldn't keep happening. Why do you bring out the worst in me and then exploit it?

Maybe I just like having that excuse.

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