scrawl

i.

We met where someone had eons ago carved meet me here when your world falls apart into the grey, crumbling, concrete path separating the road from the park. Though I doubt she noticed the graffiti.

It was either dusk or dawn; I can’t remember which—the light was in a temporary stalemate with the darkness, and there was the faint promise or impression of stars, coming or going, led or shepherded by the moon looking as though it had been slightly erased from the deep, middling blue of the sky. There were no clouds.

I didn’t notice her coming until I heard the scuffing of her shoes. I was glad I could only hear one set of footsteps: she’d heeded my request. Turning, I felt in my pocket for the square of tightly folded paper, passed it over without a word, trying to converse through our eye contact. I went home without looking back, silent.

ii.

When school started back after the summer holidays, she sat next to me in English class. We shared one of those long desks that inadvertently worked as pairing devices for the teachers. I think we were at the back of the room, at the bottom of the usual horseshoe arrangement. I ignored her for a week, and—thankfully—she returned the cold shoulder. But when Mr Symonds (Simons?), but when the teacher assigned us to partner up, we mumbled ideas about The Great Gatsby and being beautiful fools and whether it was a romantic story or not (as always, we differed in our opinions of the heart) until we began to talk like we used to. I felt like a laugh was constantly trying to strangle my voice, and I sometimes forgot to breathe. I’d forgotten how good it was to talk to her. It felt like I’d been hunched over for years and could finally stretch. I luxuriated in the long-awaited lengthening of muscles and tightened sinews. We made no mention of my letter.

When the bell rang, I took my time packing away my things, as usual. I chucked a used tissue in the bin at the front of the classroom, packed my pencil case, shuffled my exercise book and copy of the novel into their place amongst the rest of my book-laden bag…

By the time I put my backpack on, there were only two or three other stragglers, and she’d already gone. I noticed thin, spidery handwriting on her side of the desk, tucked away in the corner where she normally had her drink bottle: Stop writing on the Table!!! It wasn’t her penmanship; it looked like it had been there for a while. It wasn’t her humour either: she’d never had a good sense of irony.

I had to stop writing on the table, too—metaphorically. Talking to her after having written that letter: it was the same, it was a matter of principle, of not being a hypocrite.

I barely said a word to her for the rest of the year. English was the only subject we shared, and it was surprisingly easy to fall back into the sullen rut I’d dug earlier. Whenever it wasn’t easy, and I was tempted to spill over in a verbal froth of apologies and try to turn back time, I just looked towards her drink bottle and could see skinny blue lines threading out from underneath it.

Stop writing on the Table!!!

It was for the best, for both of us. After school finished, I didn’t see her again for five or six years.

iii.

It was at the Plough & Harrow Pub that I next saw her. I was enjoying a meal with my fiancée when I saw her walk in with her…well, he was her husband then, I guess. To be honest, although I still occasionally thought of her, I’d mostly forgotten about her and the letter and how it was before. But as soon as she pushed open the heavy wooden doors and let in herself and the sound of rain bucketing down—as soon as she came in, damp and as beautiful as ever, I felt a jolt of cold shoot through me as though I was a little kid who had been caught swearing.

I turned to face the window and attempted to renew my interest in whatever my fiancée was talking about. I nodded at the natural lulls in the conversation and ate chips, all the while sneaking glances across the busy room. I don’t think she saw me.

When we’d finished, I excused myself to go to the men’s room and it was as I was standing at the trough, studiously staring straight ahead, that I saw a ragged scribble in black permanent marker on the off-white tiles:

MARKING MY TERITORY

I smiled at the double meaning as I pulled the chain. Whilst washing my hands, he walked in. The one she was with. He nodded at me—I couldn’t tell whether it was a typical male assertion of his presence, or whether he thought I looked familiar (though not familiar enough to remember who I was, obviously). I nodded back and hurried out of the room without drying my hands.

I paid for the meal at the counter, and met my fiancée as she emerged from the restrooms. My eyes didn’t waver from the heavy wooden door until we were outside, and I snuck a glance back through the wet, glass façade. She was staring at me and gave a tight smile when she realised I was looking back.

iv.

I moved on, forgot about her and him and them together, lived in England for a while, spent a couple of years in New York, and then a year in a villa on the outskirts of Torino. I really had moved on, I swear. I was twice married (divorced once, but we were still on friendly terms) with a lifestyle that made up for the lack of children—at least, that’s what I told myself.

I thought that shredding the invitation that came in the mail would be enough. How’d they get my address anyway? But my wife found out through our joint Facebook account (her idea, not mine) and insisted we go. We were going to be in Sydney for a wedding the next weekend anyway, so the timing worked out unfortunately well.

And so, here I was, twenty-five years later at my old high school: practically bald and only slightly paunchy, but here nonetheless. A lot had changed, but it was all still eerily familiar: déjà vu of the worst sort.

I hugged hellos and kissed cheeks and shook hands and didn’t see her all night, though she must have been there, because when my wife and I got back to our hotel room and she was having a quick shower, I found a tightly folded square of paper in my back pocket, yellow and brittle with age and falling apart at the creases. I opened it carefully, but I was quick with curiosity. Even though it wasn’t addressed or signed off properly, I recognised the faded handwriting—my handwriting, from years ago, by a different me.

I love you. But I know you don’t love me the same way. And even if you do, you shouldn’t. You can’t. You’re with someone else now. I missed my chance, like always. But that’s okay. You’re happy. I can see that now. And I don’t want to get in your way. I know he’s jealous of our relationship, and he has reason to be, I guess, but everything will just be easier for you (and me) if we stop hanging out.

I love you, hope everything works out.

I should have cringed at the corniness of my seventeen-year-old self, but I only felt sympathy. I was happy now; I didn’t need some stupid reminder of the past, of what could’ve been, of what might’ve been, of what wasn’t.

I walked over to the wastepaper bin and refolded the paper so I could tuck it discreetly away—the way my wife assumed things, it was safer this way, trust me. But as I did so, I saw deep, black marks: fresh, neat handwriting.

v.

I love you, I always have. We can make this work, I know we can. Meet me at Plough + Harrow tomorrow at 9pm. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. xx

I tore the letter up and made confetti rain down on a small collection of rubbish, where it belonged.