Sweet Creature
We had been moons orbiting the same planet but never fated to cross paths for long. I remember lining up for the procession at Allie’s wedding, second from last in line, the only girl without a boy on her arm, moments before the first time I was swept into your gravity. Her soon-to-be husband and your older brother were whisper-yelling across the foyer outside the chapel, arguing over changing the procession order to make your absence as minimally disruptive to Allie’s picture-perfect ceremony as possible.
We had known of each other before that day. I had heard the rumors about your wild streak and the stories of the glory days. I had seen you across the playground as children and in the school halls as teens, though at that point, even those sightings were distant memories. When I found out we’d be walking the aisle together, I had hoped you’d left behind the selfish degenerate I’d known of in the past. I was disappointed you hadn’t shown up, but I wasn’t surprised. But then you appeared at my side and slipped your arm in mine so smoothly it took me a few seconds to realize you hadn’t been there the entire time. I remember the sound of you trying to control your ragged breathing and the smell of sweat, so faint, beneath your freshly sprayed cologne. I had looked up at you expecting to see the patchwork denim vest you’d worn as a uniform throughout high school and your face from 10 years before, but instead, I was shocked to see someone I barely recognized. When had you replaced the rings that sat at the corners of your bottom lip with those studs that laid flush against your skin? When had you taken out the little spikes in your eyebrows? And had you felt me staring while I tried to figure you out? I never got around to asking what made you turn to look at me with such a forced smile or what was going through your head when you treated me like a total stranger when I said your name. ‘Have we met? I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.’ Those nine words still echo in my head.
We stood in silence, staring straight ahead, an ocean of tension between us despite our arms linked and tucked tightly against our sides. Just before our cue, your brother leaned forward and told you to start with your left foot and to match my strides. You hadn’t bothered to show up to the rehearsal, or you would have known. I had been prepared for disaster, relatively speaking, but for the second time that day, you surprised me. You followed my lead like you hadn’t spent your entire life forging your own path.
My clearest memory of the ceremony is watching my cousin walk down the aisle, a Grecian goddess in a sheath dress that dusted the floor as if her feet hovered beneath it. The modest bouquet she held to her chest, the way her hair cascaded down her back like an Old Hollywood starlet, the way her eyes sparkled brighter than the diamonds studding her ears and draped around her neck, every aspect of her was glorious and sent a burning ache through my chest as I held back the joyful sobs that I feared would ruin my carefully made up face. The rest of the ceremony passed as expected, as everyone except you had practiced, but the memories are hazy as I try to recall anything but the glimpses of you behind the groom and best man.
I paid the photographer to make a few extra prints of my favorite photos from that day. Were you as uncomfortable as you looked, or were you just preoccupied with something? There was one picture, though, that captured the third time you surprised me that night. We were stuffed with chicken piccata and a few too many glasses of pinot grigio. You had wordlessly taken my hand and dragged me to the dance floor, your lips splitting into an earnest smile as you watched my face light up the first time you spun me around. I still remember expecting you to leave the dancefloor if the music turned slow. My cheeks still ache thinking about how happy I was to get pulled closer when that romantic folksy ballad began to play. And I’m still so thankful the photographer captured the moment that came next, the one I had missed seeing while my head was against your chest, because you looked at me like I could become your world.
When the reception had ended and we were all outside in the cold waiting for our rideshares, I remember how warm your jacket was with the remnants of your body heat when you draped it across my shivering shoulders. When we all got back to the hotel, I remember offering to give your jacket back and how you said you’d get it in the morning, and then how that was only the second thing you’d said to me all day. When I think about the choices we made after that, I still can’t figure out how we reached and stretched through miles of silence to end up tangled in that queen-sized bed. It was a game of ‘who can say the most without saying anything at all.’ You read me like I was a picture book and I was lost in your pages like you were Finnegans Wake. In the end, I drowned in your stream of consciousness and washed ashore in a world of my own whimsical dreams and ideals.
Two years passed before I found myself at the mercy of your gravity again and had to watch as the beautiful life I’d built started to be crushed and crumble around me. I was with Allie and Nathan when your brother got the news that your bike had gotten laid down on the highway, when he had called Nathan in a panic. Then I realized I was parked at the end of their driveway and would have to drive us to the hospital when all I could think about was how the last time I saw your face it was nestled between my thighs.
Did you know that I never hated hospitals before you? After a few hours in the waiting room, your surgeon came out and told us it was a success. Your leg might not feel the same anymore, and you’d have some scars from the road rash, but you would be fine. That was the only time I ever saw your brother cry, and it was from the joy of you surviving. It was a fact you would make fun of him for every chance you got. A couple of days after the accident I went to visit you. Much like after Allie’s wedding, there was no logic to support my choices. You had always worn dark colors and to see you in that pale blue hospital gown was more unsettling than seeing the cast up to your thigh or the gauze pads covering your arm. I remember feeling like I couldn’t speak and I remember you getting the biggest smile I’d ever seen as you said my name. How did you remember it after all this? After years of distance, after such a traumatic accident, and especially when you couldn’t remember it before?
I visited you a couple more times before you were released, and a few more times once you were home. I took you to so many doctor appointments before you could drive again that I thought I was becoming sterile just from the time spent in those offices. But it wasn’t long before laughter filled the space where there had always been silence, where hearing my name from your lips became as necessary as oxygen. It was gradual, but I got to watch you grow. Early on there were so many heavy days when you lived in that silence, but you let me live in it with you even if just for a bit. Your mind healed slower than your body, but you shared both with me. I wish I could remember the details of all the small moments that built up as you became someone important to me. Looking back, it seems like you always were, and I’ve always been one to take things for granted when they’re just a part of everyday life. How quickly you found yourself in a position where I had to make a conscious effort to be grateful.
We have lived on opposite sides of the same coin for our entire lives, connected by a couple of high school sweethearts who took their sweet time tying the knot. If we had met each other sooner, if we had shared any firsts, I don’t think we would have gotten to this point. I think you would have made me a nervous wreck, and I think I would have driven you off the deep end. You had to carve your own path to find me, even if it was long and wandering, even if it didn’t match the overly detailed schedule I had laid out for my life. But that path eventually brought you to me, and now that sweet song we danced to so long ago means more than the moment you saw a world within me and more than the moment my “that’s him” photo was taken. Now it’s the story of two moons orbiting in sync.
