To those who feel invisible
Seeing her again, after all these years, was like coming home.
— November’s Night, Hollis Thatcher
Most mornings, he’s here.
Usually alone, he sits at the same table, laptop open with a bowl-ish looking mug of coffee at his elbow, the steam from the hot drink rising up, up, up until it disappears into nothing.
I’m only here to watch.
Golden light slants through the grimy window of the coffee shop, warm rays that brighten the right side of his face. The left side is thrown into darkness, a sharp contrast to the half bearing the sun’s muted glow. Thick brows and a dark shock of hair shadow his downturned gaze, though I don’t need to see his eyes to know their color.
Blue with green striations. Sometimes darker, sometimes lighter, depending on his mood. The left iris is also dotted with flecks of gold, a perfect imperfection only noticeable once you get up close and personal.
But I remember.
He wears his age well. Not that thirty-seven is old, of course. But he looks the same. The roundness has been carved from his cheeks and his jaw is sharper, more angular than when he was a boy.
I say boy, even though the last time I saw him was the day he turned twenty-two. Hardly a boy. Yet, at the time, man didn’t seem to fit, either.
It certainly fits now.
I like to think I’ve aged well, too. Wealth has helped, of course. Organic produced squeezed into fresh juice each morning and injectable fillers strategically placed around my lips and brow keep me looking closer to thirty than forty. Luckily, I can afford to hold on to my youth. I guess you could say that’s one perk of the path I chose.
The chance of being recognized is slim. While I may look twenty-seven as opposed to thirty-seven, my appearance has changed drastically since he saw me last. These days, my skin is fair, my complexion a dewy alabaster compared to the tanning bed bronze I used to sport well into winter, and I traded my strawberry blonde waves for sleek platinum strands over a decade ago. My body is equally as sleek; the curves he once ran his hands over as he plunged into me from behind no longer exist. I’m hard now, both in body and soul, and the weight of his touch is a memory I can’t even recall anymore.
Except in dreams. The coveted nights when sleep becomes a portal through which time has no bearing, and I’m instantly transported back there, back to him, back to our old studio apartment that, at the time, cost more than we could afford, where the ancient vents used to clang loud enough to wake the dead during the winter and the window air conditioner turned the small space into an icebox in the summer. On those nights, drifting deep in that dreamscape, I can feel his splayed fingers, the desperate way his thrusts reverberate up my spine, the liquid heat of his release. And then after, when he grabs my hair and pulls my head back, pressing his lips to mine, I can even taste the peppermint mouthwash on his tongue.
I wake from those dreams with a sweetness in my mouth and a heaviness in my chest, the latter usually taking days to shake.
The thing is, it’s not a dream. It’s a memory. The same one every time. One that leaves a frustrated ache just below my abdomen, a swelling something pooling between my legs that not even my faithful vibrator can satiate.
They used to come sporadically, these nighttime recollections of sexual frenzy. But this past month, they’ve been coming weekly. Of course, there’s a reason for that. Probably many reasons.
Now, I peer at him from beneath my lashes, a dark fringe made longer by an expensive lash booster, and feel a different ache flutter through my core.
My heart hurts as I study his bent head, yet I can’t tear my gaze away.
Believe me, I’m not a masochist. (Well, maybe a little.) But when it comes down to it, I prefer pleasure over pain.
Though, sometimes I feel I deserve the pain more.
I’ve heard it said that pain is penance. And I suppose that’s a good thing, because seeing him today hurts more than ever.
I’ve been visiting this coffee shop all week, starting the morning I arrived in Duluth. Of the seven days I’ve been frequenting the place, I’ve seen him four times. Today marks the fifth.
His Facebook page is private, but his Instagram account isn’t, and it told me everything I needed to know to track him down. So it’s no coincidence that I found him here, in this bookish café, where paperbacks and hardcovers adorn the faded brick walls, are piled high on elaborately carved tables. The subtle smells of wood polish and old paper mingle with the scent of coffee, inspiring a kind of lazy, caffeinated high. This environment fits his personality like a glove. Back in the day, it would have fit mine, too.
This is his city, but it used to be ours. And we roamed the streets and bars and cafés like true urbanites, despite our small-town roots. We were moody and artsy, passionate and wild, toughened by the weather and softened by love. Our past kept us humble, kept us hungry. It doused my wariness and stoked his hope, made us better together than we were apart.
Until it didn’t.
I’m incognito behind chunky, designer glasses with a thick black frame. The lenses are clear and merely for looks; I had Lasik a few months after I got married. Aside from this little trip, I haven’t worn glasses since I was twenty-four. But I appear more bookish than I am, almost as bookish as I used to be, and no one glances twice in my direction, as though my studious appearance proves I love literature as much as they do. To further the lie, I brought along a book, his book, and it’s currently propped stiffly in my hands, a nostalgic nod to paper and ink. It’s been years since I read an actual book, electronic or traditional, though this particular novel is so intriguing, so heart-wrenching, so full of life, that I’m now on my third read-through.
And it’s his novel, his story, his heart-on-his-sleeve. How can I not read it at least a dozen times? How can I not search its pages for meaning, for memory, for signs? For even a hint of remembrance of what we were, of what we used to be?
I suppose I’m tempting fate. In fact, I’m absolutely tempting fate. All he has to do is look up and across the room, see his new release in my grasp, and take a closer look at the woman devouring his words to jolt his memory. He’s a new author, and I’m sure the thrill of seeing his book being read in public would make him peer closer, harder.
Would he recognize me? Would he see past the thick frames and pale skin and bleached hair and plumped lips to the girl I used to be? Back when he loved me and only me and no one else?
Probably not. Becca Cabot has been buried by Rebecca Cabot Crane for so many years that I doubt I’d even recognize her if she surfaced.
I flick my eyes up from the book, train them his way, and finally settle them on her.
The woman. The one sitting next to him, not across from him. The woman who appeared at his side this morning for the first time this week, who is all curves and freckles and laugh lines. I watch as she leans her head on his shoulder, brings her left hand up to rub his arm while silently reading from the screen of his laptop. A diamond sparkles on her ring finger, and though it’s not nearly as large as mine, my insides twist with jealousy.
I run the pad of my thumb over my own rock, a princess-cut design with a halo setting that, at just over two carats, rarely fails to make most women’s lips purse with envy. Now I flip it on my finger, tucking the diamond deep into my palm. I give it a squeeze for good measure, picture it grinding to dust in the hollow of my hand.