The Golden Year.

He's coming back early, three days early. I may have inspired the
change in itinerary. And I am facing this return to reality, one where
it is not just about me and one where I helplessly realize how my
world still revolves around me, no matter how terribly self absorbed
that sounds. I'm sitting at his kitchen counter now, contemplating
taking this job that might be offered to me and wondering how life
might evolve if we don't work together, questioning if I might use
this job or any other job as a way to push him out and away. I'm
thinking how easy it might be to pack up my things and vanish across
town to my tiny little apartment. It makes me wonder how far deep I've
climbed in and how no matter what, leaving seems like the easiest
thing to do. Of course I won't do it, not just yet. That might just be
my convenient excuse for cowardice.

He asks me, "do you still love me", every time he calls. Always, I
answer yes and wonder if he can detect the traces of treason in my
voice. And if it isn't a blatant lie, it is something worse because I
hang in limbo, still undecided.

There is music playing in the background, notes and melodies echoing
of the walls of his house, songs that the architect and I used to
listen to lying beneath bed sheets on Sunday afternoons, his head
propped up on his hand, the white winter sun casting shadows in his
room. He would twirl my hair between his fingers and I was happy even
if he had never loved me back. Now and again my mom will ask me about
him and how he is doing and I think she knows. She knows how I feel.
But these feelings are funny things because sometimes the
overwhelmingly consume me and other times they quietly float away like
a blade of grass captured by the wind.

And I wonder how she made her choice.