"Retroflections on a trip.
Maybe I did know, maybe somewhere inside, I knew I couldn't not touch you.
I know, for sure, that somehow, somehow I was lost, from the moment I read the words in your letter of late in the week before I made the trip, ""you better hug me way tight,"" or words close enough to that effect.
I don't know. I guess people do the best they can with what they got.
So anyway, yah. I was late (as usual) leaving, and read your text, asking ""when,"" as I pumped the gas into the car.
""Gas and cash and gone,"" I texted back. I was automaton, already.
You never answered that one, and as I mounted the ramp to the interstate, I managed to key in and send, ""on the highway, now!""
I didn't mind that one wasn't answered, either. I thought to myself, ""perhaps, she is sleeping to get through the hours - and if, instead, she is running, that's okay, too,"" and just kept driving.
I did not think, not even for a second, about what would or might happen once I arrived. I decided I would next text you once I was in [metro area]. I thought, at first, that I would do that at [earlier metro area,] but once I arrived at that one, I just kept going.
Since I was listening to music, I had the phone in my crotch so I'd feel it vibrate if and when you next rang or texted. It didn't move at all until I was about 30 minutes away. I still wasn't worried. I don't know if I ever would have become worried. I decided, quite early on, and well before you said, ""please come,"" that I didn't know the end, and damn sure couldn't predict it, and had left that off, long ago. My plan at the point was to get there.
But, yah, you texted, anxious and waiting, ""how far?"". It was nice. It saved me the moments of anguish I'da felt when I pulled over to send the next text, which would have been only to ask if you still wanted to see me.
""30 mins?,"" I guessed, back.
""Call me when you get here""
""K.""
30 minutes later I was on your street, and pushing the phone's talk button.
Hi, are things okay, etc., arrangements of how to get from my car to your face, then the last possible chance I would ever have to be anything resembling fair: ""hey, it's still okay to say you don't want to, even now, honey.""
It was the last thing even remotely close to a stop sign.
Then, the walk, in a haze, around to the back of your building.
There was someone sitting on the stoop, a female, but I didn't know if it was you or not. I remember glancing away, briefly, at about ten feet out, down and to my right, then up again, and you were on your feet, and into my arms.
I couldn't draw a blank at that point, not if I wanted to with everything I had.
Manipulation, seduction, or just plain chemical romance, whichever, but drawing a blank, staying blank, coldly withdrawn, was not an option. You asked me to come, after all, and not any charade of me I might have been able to pull off. You asked for me. I wasn't about to give you less.
As if I could have.
I couldn't stare straight ahead in the car, and look at the road or the passing buildings, or at my reflection in the glass, not while you were in the next seat. Anytime I turned from looking at you, it was only by matter of force.
Yup. If I coulda pushed a button on that dashboard to explain the rudeness of my stare, your radio woulda played ""Can't Take My Eyes Off of You.""
But, then I mighta screamed at the top of my lungs, that refrain, ""oh, pretty baby..""
What a time. And that's just the first 20 minutes or so."