Notes Not Played

She never wanted to move in with me. I asked her and she said yes, she even said it right away. But even then there was a rehearsed tone to it, one I wouldn't pick out for a while. She knew it was coming, could see it like something flying off a flatbed toward the windshield. You can't really swerve. You can speed up or you can slow down.

Moving day didn't help much. It was August, brutal heat and brutal humidity. Her building had an elevator, and my place only had a few steps going up to it, so there were things in our favor. But the air was so thick with our own sweat that you could tell it didn't bode well. Our eyes stung with it, our grips were sloppy, and it became a day of "Let's just get this over with." That isn't the way to start something. Not something that's going to last.

She wanted to wait until marriage. Or at least an engagement. To me the move was something that happened before those things, so that you weren't walking into the unknown with even less knowledge than you already had. So you could see how things fit together day and night after day and night, see if they changed shaped. And eventually I convinced her, or wore her down, did whatever I did so that when I asked the final time I got what I wanted. But I swear I thought it was what we wanted.

Indian summer hit. The sweat stayed. My place was a step down from what she was used to, I didn't have air, just fans, things to take the edge off. They only ended up adding more edge to things. Murder rates go up when it's hot. This is just another version of that.

I'd only had a few roommates before then, and they were all guys. Some I knew, others I was stuck with. She'd never lived with anyone besides her parents and her freshman year roommate she hated. Maybe that had something to do with it. I guess it was the first time either one of us had to put some effort in to make something work. You can't throw a punch or flat out ignore the person. I guess you can. But not in something that's going to last. At least not in my book.

We were cold in the winter. Worst winter this city had seen in decades, well before we were born. We came from warmer places, too, we were dealing with all sorts of new problems. I bought blankets. I wrote and wrote and wrote my landlord. One guy can only do so much. I thought about making her a sweater, but my fingers just couldn't work those needles the way I wanted them to. It doesn't matter what you want to do sometimes, if you just plain can't do it.

It wasn't in the sleeping, or the eating, or the anything too specific. It was in those little moments. A guy I knew once who I didn't much like at the time talked to me about jazz. It's the notes they're playing, sure, but it's equally the notes they're not playing. It was a new concept for me, music being the notes not played. I didn't really get it at the time, sounded a bit off the mark. But a few months with her. I understood.

I never liked the thaw. You put up with all that cold and you want some reprieve before you have to deal with the sweat again. But it was such a shallow, grey window. She ruined three pairs of white shoes and the place had a rat problem. We'd sit and read and hear them moving around in the walls. She would look at me. I'd have to look away because, even though it was rats, it was almost nice to be hearing something else for a change.

Before she said yes we had spent some time apart. When I met her I knew right away that she was the one. Just like in the movies. And we were so happy for a time. And when things got bad and we split, it was the worst pain I'd ever felt. I hope it's the worst I'll ever feel. But slowly I started to feel better. I even began looking at other girls. And then she and I reconnected and we figured some things out, and we wanted to give it another go. I had asked before and she'd always said no, but this time she said yes. So, hell, this is probably all my fault. You meet a person, you feel that feeling, you have that certainty, and suddenly it's gone? You may get her back and I even hope you do. But there's always going to be that voice. That voice that's telling you if it happened the once then it could happen again. And if it happened once and you got over it, well, then maybe that's the way it should be.

I'd look at her in her chair, our bed, and I was happy most of the time, some form of it anyway. But those voices plagued on me, wore me down. The first, telling me that she was it. The second, telling me she wasn't. And I got quiet. Scared. Didn't tell her any of this. I couldn't. I didn't want to hurt her. And then she left. I guess I said everything I needed to say.