Pauline called me on a Tuesday after a decade of silence. Separations are delicious in their own way. I liked hearing her neediness, her longing. Immediately, I wanted desperately to break her heart. But, of course, instead, I said yes to her every request, just like always. Yes to meeting for a drink in an Oakley bar, yes to dinner at a pizza shop in Clifton. Yes to missing her and loving her and wanting her and needing her. Yes to forgetting the past and charging on to the future. Yes to revisions, to restarts, to taking a breath and opening my arms wide to fall in love again. Yes to being absorbed into her entirely, to undoing the pain of her leaving, still too fresh after all these years.

            The afternoon we were to meet, my heart had its hands reaching for something I thought I’d forgotten. My mind rolled around thoughts my language could never express. I painted my face a costume, selected the vibrant hues of sunshine yellow, new-beginning orange, colors I knew would complement my skin and hide my aging.

            Part of me has always existed with her, there, wherever she was. Part of me was better with her. We both knew this. The thin scrim of a life I managed to create without her suddenly felt vacant, hollow. We were just high school lovers, so why does it hurt so bad?

            She was here, and yet, she was never here. I knew from my social stalking that Pauline had become the kind of woman torn between taking a step up toward the light or a step down to drown in darkness. Somewhere after loving me and leaving, Pauline stopped being alive for no reason at all.

            In my pocket is the pebble I found thirty years ago, my albatross, an anchor to the past. Pauline used to hold it to her lips, transfer kiss to kiss, a way to stay connected even when we were apart. Some people are so unforgettable they leave a rash on your memory, something scarred and permanent, a fever so high your heart never recovers.

            In the lowlight at Habits, I could tell right away Pauline’s grace was gone. Her hijab was gone, too, and so were her skirts. I drank down half my beer and watched my old friend looking pensively at the bar. She had worry in her eyes, the kind that slips into fear so quickly. I knew she came back to make me love her again, and I decided I’d let her pull me along. Somehow, she still managed to make me feel good in a bad way.

            Sitting across the high-top from her, I wanted time to move in reverse, to take us back thirty years to that fervent summer, our bodies pressed close despite the Cincinnati humidity. I pretended to listen to what she had to say, her hollow apologies for not being in touch. She gave me a flood of stories, reasons how the world had screwed her over, said that she was so close this time to her big break. We had drinks and dinner and ended up in my bed, desperately grasping for a handhold on my first language: loss. Pauline left like I knew she would. Now I call her once a week just to hear her say my name.

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