(I'm fighting for us, but most of all for you is the refrain in my head as I make my way carefully to the back garden to check the progress and see if there are going to be table grapes for breakfast. Maybe see if there's a ghost so breakfast can be replaced by total, helpless insanity.)
Wanted to see how you were doing, Princess.
He is suddenly a familiar-stranger with that friend-you-haven't-seen-in-a-long-time vibe, a casual formality that leaves me feeling weird and hectic, a panicky-prickly feeling and I want to run to the wheel of time and roll it backwards in an applaused hurry, like on The Price is Right.
The Jake is Right.
Only he's wrong and this means I'm crazy.
But am I? I reach out and tug at his shirt sleeve. It comes with me, cool cotton poplin in that ever-present pale blue. Ironed before wearing but also rumpled in that perfect Preacher way. I want to touch his skin and I bite into my tongue to suppress the urge.
What is it?
What if you are real?
What would you change?
I let go, retreating back to a safe distant. Nothing.
Dear God in Heaven, you're so beautiful when you're stubborn. He's really got you wrapped.
Funny, he said the same thing about you once and look how long it took him to undo everything you did.
I could undo it faster if you just say the word. He rolls his bottom lip in and then out again. He's trying not to smile. Always in competition. Always blew the rest of them away with his charm that didn't exist for how blinding it is.
I nod and look out toward the sea. And then it all blows up again and I already did that once and look at what happened?
What if it didn't happen this time?
What if it did? I feel like this is our dance now. You fuck up my head and I let you and then I remember everything and I run-
-And you run. We finish at the same time.
Gotta run, Pooh. It's a whisper.
See you later, Piglet.
Oh. It hurts so bad. Why does it still hurt so bad?