—
“I can’t promise you anything,” he says.
They stand on the balcony of his hotel room. Below, Egnatia Street refuses to quit. Thessaloniki is buzzing at four in the morning. Cars and taxis fight for the road. People fight for their place in this torn country.
“And I know you’re not asking me to,” he continues. “This has probably been one of the easiest relationships I’ve been in.”
She tries to stop it, but parts of each of her dimples indent her skin slightly.
“No bullshit. No drama. No fights. You being you. Me being me,” he admits.
She takes his hand. Greece is still loud.
“It just sucks,” she whispers.
Her hair is blonder, lighter than when they first arrived. They met in this very hotel over eggs and feta and yogurt and bougatsa, before they traveled by bus and ferry with the rest of the group to Thassos the next day, where they’d spent the majority of the month sneaking off into the darkness of the island. The airline had lost her luggage and there she was, in the same outfit she traveled from Virginia in, singing and laughing.
“It’ll come,” she said, trying to conceal the fear that it potentially wouldn’t with another sequence of lyrics.
Tonight is their last night in Greece. Together.
“It just sucks,” she repeats, this time, louder. “If we lived closer; if things were different,” she pauses, then stops, swallowing whatever else she wants to say.
They stand on the balcony a little longer and wait for the street to quiet.
◊♦◊
It wasn’t supposed to get serious. I wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be a month in Greece, and then poof, back to the everyday. Although, not for me. I was staying in Greece for an extra two months. She was going home. It’s how my life was now, on the constant move, doing my best not to get sucked into the complacency of New York for too long. I had a job to finish, and that meant staying far the fuck away from where I knew I would settle. To the place I was born. To a co-op on Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria overlooking the East River. To a girl. Each, although ideal one day, would imprison me during a time that I needed to be free. Not free to play the field, but to explore and continue with this solo narrative I had set on completing. But what did that mean for me and my social life? Stay away? Don’t get close? My friends, we can try all we want. We will fail each and every time. It’s inevitable.
We are programmed to seek companionship, in whatever way. What was I supposed to do? Not look? Not touch? Not taste? Not feel? After a heavy pursuit of the opposite sex for over ten years, to suddenly swearing off dating altogether, who was I kidding? He who loves women. The way random freckles and beauty marks are hidden on their bodies. How their hair sometimes gets stuck in a combination of cloth and clip, while helping them slip a shirt off their arms. How they’re often not afraid to admit that all they want is to be held. Of course I slipped. This time, a hell of a lot harder.
I’ve been alone for so long, minus the scattered clusterfuck of interactions I’ve had over the past couple of years, that I’ve forgotten how to be with someone. That’s what I always say initially, at least. For the longest time I told people I wasn’t ready, because of this solo journey I needed to embark on, because of an unexpected, expected, breakup I chose to get over on my own. I refused to dive between another pair of legs before I was ready and able to stand on my own, without a crutch, first.
Being with her for the month in Greece taught me that I can balance a dream and a romance. I just refuse to be in the business of making someone wait, of strapping someone into the ride of selfishness I need to be on right now. Not at the expense of anyone else, no way. Without timing, we have nothing.
◊♦◊
The moon, full and smiling, cast a spotlight from the freckled Thassian sky. A glowing circle formed and stamped onto the Aegean’s ominous shade. A car zoomed by. The headlights temporarily revealed two people off on the shoulder of a winding road, before again enclosing them in the night. The moon and the water were at their backs. He sat on the road’s divider. She stood, fidgeting and fumbling. The moon, the stars, the water, the tragedy of the place, now narrated all that didn’t need to be said.
He brought her into a hug. She hummed into his ear, a tune stained with tonight’s vodka, with the touching of two hands the night prior. He had his own soundtrack for two weeks, a track list of comfort, of eyes closed on the sand. A track list, though, that would end after song number 30. She hummed from his ear, to his cheek, to his lips, where he finished the song with his.
“Did we just make out?” he said, slipping his fingers past the tattoo on her wrist. Their first kiss, indeed.
She laughed.
My goodness, her laugh. A marching band of chuckles that could be heard in Penn Station during Peak. It should have its own ringtone. He was lucky, because of how often she let him hear it.
“What are you, 12 years old?” she accused, squeezing his hand in a way that she already knew she would have to let go. Once they rejoined the writing program sitting and dancing at the restaurant they were staying at for the month. He was 28. She was 22.
They crossed the road and walked towards the stirring lights of the restaurant. The moon stayed. It had already planned to be gone by morning.
◊♦◊
Photo: GettyImages