Chapter Text
Challenge: Jim & Blair, ten years later, 200 words
Where: Senad
When: summer 2000
I sit and watch him a while from a bench. He sits unaware, window framed in the cafe. Coffee at one hand. Sections of newspapers scattered around the table. Bad posture but comfortable, legs stretched, sneakered feet entangled with another chair. I bought him that sweater. Cable-knit is what you like, he said. But still pleased.
This small delay in rejoining him makes rejoining him better. I could be watching the lake, ducks, joggers, but I watch his fingers move. All his movements. No focus. I let the distance exist, and he’s smaller and vaguer from a block away. Spied on, he’s almost like someone else. Same but different. When I’m not there, he’s ordinary. Thinking of his classes maybe, his students.
Just some guy I live with. I could believe that from here. We both seem smaller, established, when I sit and feel the neighborhood around me. Everything I’ve grown used to. The city feels smaller. Everything I know is well known.
I get up and walk down the hill.
"There you are," he says when I walk in. Looks up, eyebrows raised. The perch of glasses on his nose can be annoying. The thing I most love.