“Hello?” His salutation carries liltingly amongst the social rigmarole. His insincerity is a brusque and ineludible spearhead driven knowingly beneath his eyes’ leadership. His contempt is thick with palpability, brewed in a puddle he has steeped in to drown, a proverbial rebirth, creating the man that stood there then. It stirs like a torrent, even. That hatred. It rushes like an insatiable ravine, soaking everything in a quiet, encroaching ruin he’d perpetrated. Like he had prolonged straining the figurative water, content to dilapidate — let things rot.
His version however, reads uniquely, a testimonial insisting he had tried to salvage it. A lunch period he doesn’t ever disremember. She sits idly, either alone or with classmates. He has a particular concentration, he always has. A concentration that does not acquiesce to the outside. Its captive is her. In his memory, she’s alone. In his heart, he deems the isolation deliberate, the emergency flare shot above the stranded water. An opportunity to extend his hand again; he takes it. Sorry. His words attempt it gingerly, tentatives yielding trepidation he feels himself fumbling through. About back then, I mean. His laughter, deliberate and coy. My Mom had told me that we couldn’t talk anymore. You know how our families are.
She had left, in the same, uninterrupted silence.
“Oh my — ... Sabrina?” His words receding in a babbled chuckle, like he’d been incredulous, here to refute that same skepticism. “Is that you?” Duplicitous, his accompanying smile keen. “I thought I saw you over there. Hey.” He sits beside her again, this time particularly dauntless, body maneuvered coolly with a knowingness, countenance unreadable, though his eyes speak again. Narrowly, with an intent discernible only through progress. His hands uncurling its carried glass upon the tabletop in a slow and invitational push toward her.
“I was going to come over here sooner but I couldn’t believe my eyes, you know? It’s actually been so long. Wow.” Gentle with audible daze, gaze almost devouring where it rests against her, scrutinizing her expression to each nicety. He recollects himself quickly, glass cited within a confirmatory nod, gesturing encouragingly for her indulgence.
“Oh, hey. Try this. You might like it.” A wink. “It’s pretty fruity.”
@chrsab