Lo Squalo

I put out my cigarette and started walking toward the Boston aquarium. It was beginning to sprinkle as I rushed inside lightly. He was there waiting for me, one hand in his pocket, the other playing away at his cell phone. We were there as a gift from his mother, but he didn't seem amused. He'd much rather be doing something else.

"Are you ready?" I ask as I come up next to him.

"Yeah." He says, turning his phone screen black and putting it into his pocket. “Andiamo a vedere degli squali.”

"And some jellyfish, too," I add.

We walk along, grabbing each other's hands in the process. Tons of penguins surround us, each breed separated. The Little Blue penguins speak away while the Rockhopper penguins stare at us harshly. I remember as a child coming here and finding most of my fascination with the penguins. This time I feel ready to move on and make our way through the aquarium as quickly as possible—anything to make our day together easier.

We'd been dating for almost a year now, in two months. It started as any other romance story does. He was a pure gentleman with his personality but pushy regarding sexuality. As time progressed, he held himself back and stopped being forceful. We started spending more time together. Most of the time, we usually lay down on his mattress, covering his apartment room's carpeted floor. We were too sexually active once I did open myself up to him. It felt non-stop sometimes. From dusk till dawn, sex was always on his mind, and if it wasn't, it was either food or a television show he'd been waiting for. The other thing was the music. We only seemed to listen to his music, as with shows and movies. I'm still not sure if it's just because myself being too shy to share my own or that he doesn't find interest in what mine possibly could even be.

"There's the jellyfish." He pointed towards the pink sea creatures flowing up and down the tank in front of us, changing my opinion.

"There they are," I confirm.

We both grew up in different sceneries as children. He was from Boston, and I was from Maine. He came from the city; I came from the mountains. He was born into money; I was born into a plastic bin in which I then started taking baths as a child. He sought the quietness of the world while I pursued the liveliness. Each of these parts of ourselves can change, except for the past, but it's never fully aligned. The only thing that did was our hearts.

He was the first to say the three-word sentence of every person's true fanciful dream. I took a bit to say it back. Once I did, everything became even weirder. Besides restaurants and a few quick movie trips, we stopped going out altogether. I started suggesting hiking, but we only got out on a few. He was too carried up with his classes. He was trying to become a police officer. I didn't wholly agree with his career choice, but I still loved him enough not to leave him over it. I wasn't in school at the time, so the reasoning for his choice of our lack of activities fell within the relevance of a normal relationship. I didn't feel as happy as I thought I would, no matter how much we each said that three-word sentence to each other daily.

"Squalo!" I announce as I point toward the shark in front of us. We'd made our way up the circular slope, leading us to our area of predators.

They each kept swimming in circles, marking their territories along the way. That was the difference between themselves and the jellyfish. The jellyfish swam up and down, using chemicals to keep themselves from being able to be stung by one another. The sharks move in circles, staring one another down, waiting to pounce as their territorial drive. The jellyfish live with one another, while sharks could eat each other any second. The difference is ever so dividing. It's like a turkey to a bear. One is found together, and the other is always separate. The same but ever so different.

I should think over this relationship a little longer.