About a year ago, I had a piece published on a website! Unfortunately, the domain has since been taken down and since I was really proud of the piece, I wanted to host it somewhere, even if it is just my own personal Tumblr. :) For my very very few followers, here’s Pumpkin Spice.
We meet as we did the first time: reaching for the last bottle of pumpkin spice coffee creamer—a cliché “meet cute” if I’ve ever heard one—only this time my hand jerks away as though yours is a venomous snake, ready to bite down and slowly stop my heart. Close enough, right?
Seeing you again makes it feel as though no time has passed at all, though that’s not the case. But you’re still you and you are still beautiful as ever—maybe even more so, if possible. That’s just a harder slap to the face, though; the least you could’ve done is gone bald.
“I didn’t know you were back in town,” you say.
“Yeah,” I say lamely, already looking for exit routes. How could you? My pride has kept me from all of your usual stomping grounds, but now you’ve snuck into mine. “It’s a big city.”
“You look good,” you say, and it makes my heart flutter for a moment before free-falling into the pit of my stomach.
Fuck you, I want to say. Fuck you and your perfect smile and hair and skin, and fuck you for looking good when you deserve to look bad. Fuck— But the words fall short of my lips and I swallow them back down, festering in my gut with my poorly stitched together heart. All I offer is a tight, forced smile; it’s too little too late.
A kid runs past in a Batman costume though Halloween is still weeks away, but I hardly notice with how fixed my eyes are on you, drinking you in as though I hadn’t seen water in years. One look in your eyes and I can remember every moment, every smile, every touch. I remember the way your eyes crinkle at the corners when you’re truly smiling and how your fingers drum against your legs when you’re uncomfortable or nervous; I remember those same fingers brushing away my tears after my mom died. It’s amazing how the same touch sends me reeling now.
“Well, it was good seeing you,” you say. There’s a pause, and then I see you going for the pumpkin spice creamer; something inside of me snaps.
“Fuck you!” I say out loud this time, a little too loud; an old lady in an electric scooter rolls past and gasps, her head turning towards us so fast that it sends her dangling skeleton earrings dancing. You freeze, hand inches from the bottle. It would be so easy for you to take it and run, but I won’t let you; it’s such a trivial thing, but it’s the last straw. “Fuck you and your soft words and your small talk, and your crinkly eyes and your drumming fingers and your hair that won’t fall out.” Hot, angry tears run down my cheeks, my entire body vibrating; you look at me like I just started speaking in tongues. “Fuck you if you think you’re taking this, too.” I lurch forward and send you stumbling back to get out of my reach; my fingers curl around the bottle and I yank the creamer off the shelf before storming off without a second glance.
Don’t look back, I tell myself. Don’t do it. Don’t fucking— I close my eyes and will myself not to look, but memories play on the back of my eyelids like the drive-in we went to on our first date. The good times come out again, and I remember you introducing me to your sister and kissing under the Fourth of July fireworks and Halloween when you were the sun and I was sunburnt; it all comes rushing back and I can’t help but take one more peek at you and everything you are. But when I turn, you’re already gone. It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds but I’m left alone in the aisle again—not even the old lady with the skeleton earrings waited around after my outburst—and it makes me wonder if you were ever there at all, or if my longing generated your visage out of some primal need for closure.
Batman knocks down a tower of cans nearby, but I’m too numb to notice. Real or not, you always leave me this way.
