\u201cAre you sure you don\u2019t want these?\u201d The young woman at the charity shop counter smiles as she rummages through your clothes. \u201cThey\u2019re nearly new. They must look great on you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were my partner\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m expecting some kind of sympathetic look but she keeps smiling inanely while pawing the clothes, as if she didn\u2019t hear.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The words, said fast and without forethought, shock us both.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so sorry.\u201d Her smile retreats like a snail into its shell, and her cheeks flush.<\/p>\n
She starts folding the clothes, a dance around our awkward silence, then pauses over the sweater I bought you last Christmas. \u201cHe had wonderful taste.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, he did. For the most part,\u201d I say. \u201cI\u2019m glad they can be of use.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m almost at the door when she calls after me: \u201cWait!\u201d<\/p>\n
I turn and she\u2019s waving something at me. I walk back and realise what it is.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was in a shirt pocket,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
I stare at the key she\u2019s holding out to me. For a moment I\u2019m superstitiously afraid to touch it but then I take it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
I can almost hear your voice.<\/p>\n
I told you so.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to hear it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I hesitate outside our door. This moment before stepping in used to be full of possibility. Maybe I\u2019d find you by the window, poring over impenetrable ledgers and stacks of invoices. Maybe you\u2019d be taking a break and making coffee while the sounds of Frank Ocean filled the apartment. Or perhaps I\u2019d detect the lingering scent of your not-as-secret-as-you-thought cigarettes and know you\u2019d had a tough day. You might be out and I\u2019d phrase a message casually, walking that razor-wire tightrope between checking in and controlling.<\/p>\n
Now I know exactly what\u2019s behind that door. Nothing.<\/p>\n
I unlock and walk into silence and empty space. I am an astronaut.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I take a shower and wash my face with the exfoliating scrub. I remember you telling me once that it was apocryphal that the human body regenerates all its cells throughout a lifetime, just a dumb thing stoners repeat to each other. But, you said, the skin does regenerate by necessity\u2014the epidermis is replaced every two to four weeks.<\/p>\n
I curl and uncurl my fingers and realise what that means. I last touched your skin six weeks ago. Except\u2026 I didn\u2019t really. That skin I touched you with has been shed. This body has never really touched you. That moment is gone and it could only ever have been kept alive by renewal, by touching you again. And I can\u2019t. You\u2019ve slipped through my fingers forever.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019m watching Beef<\/em>\u00a0on Netflix again. An act of masochism, like a spurned teenage girl listening on repeat to a song she used to play with her first love. The first time I saw this\u2014with you, on this same sofa\u2014was the last time I remember us being really together. Not just that we were physically there together, not even that we were enjoying it together. We talked about it.<\/p>\n I\u00a0asked you if they\u2019d got the Asian American experience right, and you\u2019d tell me little moments of your childhood I\u2019d somehow never heard before, facets of experience reflected in the show. You\u2019d ask me if that last episode really captured depression well, and I told you that it did a better job than any of my therapists had ever managed. We both cried during the last scene and then we realised we were both crying and laughed.<\/p>\n We didn\u2019t have sex that night but you cuddled in close to me and I felt a light somewhere deep inside me as I fell asleep, like a warm candle glowing deep inside a dark, cold cave.<\/p>\n Now, I go to the fridge to get a beer and see the key on the counter, where I left it\u2014a tiny accusation.<\/p>\n The last time you came home, you were late. I sat, waiting, drinking too much, and finally had to buzz you in because you couldn\u2019t find your key. You stank of cigarettes, whisky and\u2014I thought\u2014a stranger\u2019s aftershave. When you headed straight for the shower, my suspicions boiled.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe your key\u2019s on someone\u2019s bedside table?\u201d I spat when you emerged. \u201cOr their floor?\u201d<\/p>\n Your fury came in hot, whisky-inflamed. You said you\u2019d had the key, definitely, and that the one time you fucked someone else was before you\u2019d even moved in. We hadn\u2019t agreed any rules, and you were sick of me bringing it up and all the accusations.<\/p>\n I should have apologised, but I didn\u2019t. Do you want to know the truth? I was just glad to see passion in your face. I was glad to see you fighting for us. I wanted the fight.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know where it would go though. I didn\u2019t know you\u2019d start to list all the things you\u2019d done to help me, like you\u2019d been keeping an inventory the whole time. I didn\u2019t know you\u2019d bring up the fact I\u2019d not worked in four months and you were eating into your savings to help me keep my apartment. I didn\u2019t know that you lived your whole life like an accountant and had done your sums and filed me in the deficit column. I didn\u2019t know I would hit you.<\/p>\n Not hard, not really. And I didn\u2019t\u00a0mean to. But I did. I hit you.<\/p>\n The fire in you snuffed out instantly: summer into winter, no fall in between. You didn\u2019t say a word as you methodically packed and I followed you around like a mangy puppy\u2014groveling, bargaining, weeping. At the elevator door, I reached for you and you flinched.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you go, you\u2019re dead to me,\u201d I said. What desperation. What a clich\u00e9.<\/p>\n You turned, bags in hand, frost-faced. \u201cI am.\u201d<\/p>\n If you were dead, people would call all the time, stop by with sympathy. They\u2019d ask if I was looking after myself, invite me to events to keep me busy. But nobody\u2019s calling.<\/p>\n It would be easier if you were dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I last touched your skin six weeks ago. Except\u2026 I didn\u2019t really. That skin I touched you with has been shed. This body has never really touched you. That moment is gone and it could only ever have been kept alive by renewal, by touching you again. And I can\u2019t. You\u2019ve slipped through my fingers forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[140,1409,3523,105,12],"class_list":["post-20642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-love","tag-queer","tag-queer-relationships","tag-relationships","tag-violence","writer-jaime-gill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20642"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21121,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20642\/revisions\/21121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}