Yet Another Silent Goodbye

“I guess I wasn’t enough in various aspects, not good enough to have a good thing going between us,” I repeated the sentence in my head as I watched him cross to the other side of the road, seemingly in a rush to prepare for his flight.

Dee and I met on a tour van, he stood out in all the wrong ways but that’s a risk I am, unfortunately, always willing to take- to know why this person wore his worn-out jeans the way he did, why his hair looked a bit unkempt.

It’s always the unusual ways of meeting that get my heart throbbing, another wave to ride, another life to fix.

Dee didn’t necessarily need the “fixing” that I readily avail to the broken men I seem to draw to my side like a magnet. He had most of his shit together…personal, work and relationships, and a baby mama on the far East coast who got everything that I have to live without.

Long charts turned into long hours of calls on the phone, tons of silly laughter at 2am, small talk and deep narrations alike. In my head, he was a good catch. He seemed to have my back when my emotions were thrown off balance, he seemed to listen… he could be a good man for me.

Meet ups became more frequent, we used every chance we had to go out on a date, grab lunch or dinner, even if it meant I would have to leave work early- as long as he had a minute before leaving town. Like always, I stripped myself bare, I let him know how he makes me feel good, how I like his husky voice, how I loved the way he pronounced my name, how I needed him to give my days the much-needed highlight.

We never declared we loved each other, that was clear. None of us wanted to commit beyond the casual meet ups and the phone calls. And that was fine. Problem is, while he referred to me as his 28-year-old ‘young friend’, there is a part of me that subconsciously started to love this man. There were parts of him I wanted but couldn’t demand because technically, we weren’t dating. We preferred not to define whatever we had or felt for each other.

“I am glad you are fine with this, not having to put definitions and make declarations as regards ‘us’,” he once told me, and in all honesty, I was fine with it.

“I have come to like you as well,…not a good idea for me,” he would later chip in during one of the long conversations we had over the phone.

I often imagined us holding hands as we left the movie theater, recasting the cast on our way to his condo, laughter as we grabbed snacks and headed to the couch. Another dose of small talk before we started to get reckless with our hands, maybe even our lips.

I wondered how it would feel if his full lips crashed into mine, how his hand would scale the length of my neck, feeling my warm, pulsating vein to my jawline, how the warmth of his torso would burn into mine like a wild fire. Would I tremble if he leaned in and looked through my soul with his piercing eyes? Would my insides quiver if he gently thrust me into the grey couch and desired me from my waist to my very inviting eyes?

If he asked me to cliff dive into the sea of passion, would my heart skip a beat, thud into a jagged rhythm as I closed my eyes with no second thought? Or maybe, if he asked for my soul, would I be strong enough to step back before he took my very heart and wrecked it over red hot coal?

By December, I knew quite well that I didn’t have an ounce of strength left to stay away from him anymore. But I was certain, I would never have his heart, and even if l sold my soul, soon enough, he would get on that plane and head back somewhere, where his heart is, always was.

Before this whirlwind of whatever hit snag, stars aligned for my aching soul to get a glimpse into what my imagination had been, ever since I had started to feel way more than I should have, on a random Wednesday in November. He had looked into my eyes, trying to ascertain their color; “that’s a cool shade of brown, nice!” While he looked for the color, I searched for answers past the black eye balls that stared into mine. I got nothing, because nothing is what there ever was.

There was no possibility of “us” so I figured I would kiss him goodbye and bury the memory, like the many others before his.

We had spent the afternoon together, laughing heartily as usual, him joking about how I make him do teenage stuff as we strolled through the quiet lanes of Kololo. When we finally landed on a deserted bar, we kicked back and resumed the laughter…about people falling in manholes and stuff. We always had something to talk about, something to laugh about, just rarely “us.”

This time, however, there was no point in denying the chemistry between us. The ‘sextension’ that hovered around us might be the reason our waiting stuff ditched the section for the most part. His hand in mine, our folded legs touching, a sip on the cola still fizzing with a fresh lemon slice, …it was right there, the moment I had long fantasized about.

“I am so tensed up right now I don’t know what to do,” he said, curling even closer into me. Every inch of his skin that touched mine sent a voltage I could barely withstand, I had given up anything to do with self-restraint. I didn’t need that, not that evening. And when his warm palm reached for my chin, I surrendered without a fight, again, I didn’t need one.

The adrenaline rush was forcing more dramatic pulses out of my thudding heart. It was surreal as I watched his very masculine face soften up ever so lightly as he edged closer to mine. I didn’t want to close my eyes lest I miss a thing but I was way too broken, in the most beautiful way, to hang around for receipts. In a split second, his lips searched mine, and the world suddenly smelt of roses and peaches. For the next minute, even words would never paint the picture of how I truly felt, how we truly felt as we shared this passionate kiss. If my life were to end right then, I am certain I would never crave another lifetime. I had lived, I had loved, in whatever way it was.

When we finally let go of the lip lock, my mind froze before we were interrupted by a phone call from his agent. Dee’s flight was in 4 hours. As he wrung his arms around me in the sweetest of embraces, I knew in my heart that our time was over and we might never find the bearings back to this, to us.

“Cheerio, Dee, at least I had a chance to give you a proper good bye. Go where your heart is, go home. The rest I will live through.” It was yet another silent goodbye, like the many silent “I love yous” that popped in my mouth but were never said, at least not out loud.