[…]

I knew from the way you turned around that something was coming. My blood knew. There was a stilling, so that I could hear you over the crowd. You looked me right in the eye and yelled, “I’m married.” Six months earlier. When I was still in Thailand. You married when your visa expired, instead of driving six hours to renew it at the border. You said you lived with him for a few weeks, and parted as friends. You said you knew I’d take it the wrong way.

I wouldn’t have, you know. Taken it the wrong way. And I did understand, once I had time to think about it. But by then I was on a plane. Thinking about scratching out the window seals and squeezing down thin as smoke, the falling and flying and crashing through your window to land in a heap at your feet.

It’s amazing how far your mind can bend on a twelve hour flight with complimentary drinks. How a walk-out can turn into an exile sentence, how jealous can turn simple loneliness into an obsession, a compulsion to enter your work, your life, your skin—a longing powerful enough to overcome anything, except the stubbornness of wounded pride.