So This Is How It Feels...

It’s amazingly hot out, and I’m in an amazingly terrible mood. As I drive toward campus every pore in my skin opens up to buffer my body temperature from the 100 degree heat. I’m driving with the windows down because in the span of 5 minutes, my air conditioning won’t make a dent in the radiating heat of leather in the mid-July sun. I’m on my way to campus because I’ve got to burn some energy. I can’t keep bottling, or there’ll be a price to pay sooner or later.

I get out and make my way toward the Union post office to mail off my health insurance forms. As I stride deliberately through the upstairs hallway, a slender Japanese girl looks at me as though I may very well cross and do her bodily harm at any moment. Heart must be on my sleeve again today…what else is new? I consider my appearance, and I am forced to conclude that I am a picture of unpleasantness. Black shorts, black sleeveless t-shirt, shoulders high and tight, head down, eyes clear and intent on the ground 5 feet in front of me, brow furrowed under a red bandana. The clothes are for the gym. The gym is for the other stuff. Through the halls…down the stairs…close to you…

You’re there somewhere, I can feel it. Somehow I just know, but my eyes are still fixed on the ground so I can’t be sure. Through the door to the market…I can feel eyes on me, but my gaze still doesn’t waver. Up to the counter of the post office, where a haggard-looking girl on a stool looks at me with protesting eyes. Her look says it all. “Don’t make me get up…go away.” I don’t make her get up, I drop my mail and wheel around to leave. Back through the doorway that separates the two parts of the bookstore…I can feel eyes on me. Now it burns. Now I can’t ignore it. My mind gives a sharp command: “Look.” I obey. There you are.

Tabula raza.

I am dumbstruck, and suddenly there isn’t a thought in my mind. I’m still walking in spite of myself. You’re usually—

“Hi.”

Your voice is cold, and suddenly I can’t feel that I’m sweating any more. I’m not aware of any physical sensation, I just feel your eyes burning into me. So this is how it feels to be resented.

You didn’t mean it to sound that way, I know you didn’t mean it…but I’ve been there before, it just happens that way and regret is saved for later.

“Hi.”

My voice is guilty. I want to say something else. I want to tell you I’m sorry, but you gave me clear instructions the last time we talked to stop saying that. I want to ask how you’ve been. I want to tell you I laid awake last night feeling sick about what I’ve done to you. I want to be able to look into your eyes and not see pain.

You look away, and it’s the same principle as somebody just awakened by a blinding light…you want to see, but it hurts to look. There are a hundred things you could say, but I needed a good two seconds of looking into your eyes and I could see a thousand things cross your mind at once, and thousand words almost said, and a thousand possible reactions all drowned in a flood of regret.

My feet are still carrying me away from the encounter, much though I want to stop…but you’re not looking any more. Your co-worker and I are suddenly looking at each other the way two male strangers look at each other when one knows the other broke his friend’s heart. More instructions: “Just go. You’re upsetting her. There’s a time and place, and this is neither. You were the one who quit. Don’t you dare drag her along for your pathetic roller-coaster ride through confusion.”

Head back down. Shoulders higher, tighter. Heart back on my sleeve, or lack thereof. I can’t keep doing this. Something’s got to change today. I need to get my point across and then let you do what you need to do. I need a distraction…I need to get the hell out of Nebraska…I need to shut up and relax and stop over-thinking.

You were right, I was scared.

I still am.