Lea Weir, 19

You laughed, your tongue shining and your head in the sky. As usual you had me on my knees, but this time I was in the gravel and there were ruts and pits deep in my little-girl skin for hours afterward. You knew even then that I loved you. Your grimy child hands and dirty fingernails held the apple you didn’t know I’d stolen from your kitchen just out of reach, and when I tried to struggle to my feet those same hands pushed me down. I could have gotten up. I was bigger than you were then. And I looked up your nostrils to the sweet pink tops, wanted to touch you there, before you turned and threw my apple. As far as you could.

Everything about you still shines as you walk down this city street, laughing into the wind and cement. Those wide black eyes still watch something over my shoulder as I talk to you.

I’m blushing now despite having sworn to myself that I’d remain impassive around you.

Can’t even believe it’s really you;“Jesus, how long’s it been?”

Twenty years. And too many dreams to count were of your lips and fingers, and sometimes, still, when I write, it’s of you.

We’re standing near a coffee shop so you invite me for a drink. We sit down in a deeply wooden corner and I stare as you uncon- sciously primp and preen under my scrutiny, straightening this, adjusting that, while quickly flinging your life across the table. The husband you loved, his lover you hate, the divorce. Ugly, oh so ugly, all of it. You make a face. Those boys, you can hardly remem- ber what they looked like. That one girl. I’m blushing now despite having sworn to myself that I’d remain impassive around you.

Five o’clock runs into eight, so we get up and walk out into the city. We never mention the almost kisses. Your pink lips offered then pulled away. We never mention you laughing and me running, running.

I just stood there, naked, not yet crying, my finger with you all over it, behind my back.

We’re standing outside of a bar and you invite me in. Ten o’clock pours into two. We’re neither of us drunk, just warm and blurred enough to pretend that we don’t know what we’re doing. Stopping a cab, you half-sit inside of the open back door, and press your pink fingers against my palm. So like the girl’s fingers, but painted now, harder now. Your apartment is right down the street. You pull me in and we pull away.

The apartment is airy and mostly white, including the shamelessly soft carpet. “Must be hell to clean” is all I think, as you walk over, sit on the couch and I follow. Billie Holiday is floating through the walls and window. You watch me until tears start rolling down your cheeks. I wipe them away with my thumbs. Any excuse.

“I haven’t got anyone to love me anymore.”

“You’re crazy. I’ve always loved you.”

I look at my hands. You reach out, grab my ear and hair, and pull me to you. You kiss me. Kiss me, oh, kiss me. Kiss me.

Later in bed you’re dark and liquid over me.Your hair wet in all the moonlight. I kiss you down, down, until finally, after twenty years I kiss the other pink place where I’ve always wanted to touch you. The smell reminds me....

The smell reminds me of that day when my finger smelt almost, but not quite, like this. Less like peaches and more like hay. You sneezed in the dusty quiet of my closet just before they ripped the door open and sunlight splattered in all over us with our underwear off and thrown in the corner. You didn’t even look at me but cried and ran to my mother, swearing I had forced you.

Forced you ... My father never before or since hit me as hard as he did that night. His hairy worker hand with its cracked black- rimmed fingernails whistled through the air. I bit down so hard. My mouth was full of blood.

There’s blood in my mouth. You don’t make a noise, but sit up so fast your stomach smacks against my forehead. You barely push my face away with one limp hand and cup the other over your crotch.You just stare at me.Tears are rolling over your cheeks again, but I can’t reach out to you now so they gather under your chin like the ribbons of that blue sailor hat you always wore to church. They drop over your breasts and streak the Chinese sym- bol on your stomach. I don’t know what it means. You gather the blankets around you.

I didn’t mean to hurt you.

My father probably said two words to me after that. He could hardly bring himself to look at me. I used to be his favorite. He must have thought not only was I unnatural, I was hell-bent on recruiting the neighbors too.

I didn’t mean to hurt you. I leave you there in your bloody blanket mess, taking my unsaid apology with me.

It’s three flights down to the street where everything is get- ting ready for the sunrise. The wind hits me wet and silvery. That voice inside that was silent all night is screaming at me now to turn around and look up at your window. I don’t. Instead I cross the nearly empty street and walk through the jingling door of a Chinese grocery. I’m amazed that anything is open so early. I buy a hard red delicious, and after wiping it on my dirty Levis, take a sweet mouthful. The juice gathers on my lips and slips over my chin. I don’t bother to wipe it away.