rempvlski.
𝐇𝐄'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐊𝐎𝐕𝐒𝐊𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄, just her laugh. it envelopes him like the dust particles hanging in the light dance around empty space. he pays attention to the position of her feet and tries to replicate. ❛ how the fuck, janey, ❜ he whines a statement, not a question. he’s wobbly when he tries to balance on his toes, almost collides into her ––– avoids that when her hands meet his hips. he wonders if he continues doing it all wrong she’ll keep them where they are. just as quickly as it came, the touch is gone and he’s disappointed in the disappointment that pangs him. his feet can’t quite plié correctly, heels leave the ground and he can’t bend his knees like he’s supposed to. he’s laughing with her now as they move around and when they crash, his mind is dizzy, spinning, from the lack of air in his lungs. or is it something else? no, he won’t put that into his thoughts. he’s gone this far without them for a change. ❛ c’mon meryl, don’t just stand there and listen to her talk absolute shit about your own father. tell her she’s not allowed back into this apartment. tell her she’s BANNED from this residence forever. asap! ❜ he can’t quite process everything but he knows one thing. they’re drinking tea in the afternoon light of san francisco, speaking to a plant as if it were a human, and it all feels reminiscent of first day of spring in new york city. the crowds parading around the villages, the enchantment of the sun shining down through brick buildings. it’s quiet for a few moments as they catch their breath, giggles every now and again. he’s the one who breaks the silence, ❛ if i get meryl a sibling will you take them both if i leave? ❜
she’s nestled into the couch , bare legs draped over his lap , black hair fanned out over the edge of the headrest . and it’s not just quiet , she thinks , it’s peaceful . this home he’d built out of a shitbox of an apartment . she was thinking , then , how nice it would be to stay there forever ––– drinking tea , his hand on her leg , listening to swan lake , warm california sun seeping in through the windows , when new york tugs at him again . she can feel it pulling him away from her , this longing of his . she wants to say : but you’re not leaving , right ? she wants to beg : don’t go back . not yet , not ever . and really , if she was being truthful , she wants to plead : don’t leave me . she hated manhattan . she hated the skyscrapers and the brownstones , she hated the park and the harbor . she hated the way it called him away from her , just when she’d found her balance leaning against him . you could take the alice statue and move her to golden gate park , and then for all she cared you could sink the whole island into the atlantic . she sighs , looking up at the ceiling . ❛ when mia was maybe seven or eight , she used to save the seeds from every fruit she ate and she’d plant them in these little pots on our terrace . she would come home from school every day and water them and read them stories . and nothing ever grew , obviously , except finally , one day in the middle of winter ––– it was a really bad winter , we had a noreaster that year . anyways , one day we came home and a lemon seed had sprouted . it was this tiny little green thing sticking out of the dirt . it didn’t know it was january , or maybe it didn’t care . i don’t know . but there it was . with sheer force of will my sister managed to grow her own lemon tree on 64th street . it’s still out there on our terrace , it really grows lemons too . so , when i was eighteen , going through security at jfk , about to move here , my dad called me . and he told me he loved me , and then he told me . . . he told me that he had bought the lemon sapling and put it on the terrace that winter . he told me that he wanted us to believe in something . i think about that every day . my point is –––– you know what my point is . ❜ she said this , because she wasn’t entirely sure what the point of her story was . only that it had felt right to tell it : the same way it felt right to waste the day away on this particular couch . she sipped her tea .
