With the Ex

I am in the coffee shop with you, the one we used to go to together after our usual coffee shop closed. I am sitting on one end, my face to you, looking busy writing these notes in a marble-covered, quad-ruled composition notebook. You are at the window on the opposite side with your body turned slightly toward me, occasionally glancing my way with a gaze cast slightly above my head before sweeping your attention to your computer. I hope you shift to steal the same glances I am between deep breaths and knotted deglutition. It is impossible to know. Maybe you shift to better let me see your face, knowing that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Or, more likely, you shift to keep your eyes from burning in the sun reflecting off the snow outside and shining through the picture windows. Perhaps the angle of your body keeps your delicate blues intact, and nothing else can be gleaned from your position.

You’re wearing a soft salmon scarf. The soft salmon that has always shared the tenderness of your skin, the pink of your face. The face that holds the eyes I just met. Shit. You suddenly turn your body from me and pick up your phone. All I can see now is your profile engrossed in your screen, your hair falling across your cheek and covering nearly all but your lips, pursed as they do when you think. Your brow is furrowed so deeply that it is apparent, even with the barriers preventing me from seeing all of your face. Your left hand's middle and index fingers are mindlessly drifting toward the hair left out of your hat–grabbing and twisting. You are nervous, thinking of something, seeking refuge and distraction. You turn back and look directly at me. I hope my head is down enough that our eyes do not so obviously meet.

You do not leave, but you do become far more interested in your phone. All I can see is the rise and fall of your arms and shoulders as you breathe until you untuck your glasses from your shirt pocket, slowly unfolding the temples and placing the frames gently on your bridge. You do not look up, yet I cannot help but lift my eyes ever so slightly more, hoping you might do the same. You do not. I find myself yearning for something that I have dreaded: an interaction with the woman I betrayed. I must bring myself to look away, and yet I cannot. Your perceived apathy is stinging my senses, so I close my eyes.

What tends to persist when the lights are out is these damn phosphenes, which seem to resemble every mistake I have made in the last two years and the faces of the people I disappointed the most. Not only you but every friend and family member along the way. To look less in this moment is only to imagine more. I must pack my things and leave.