First

What I remember is the ache. Deep in my gut the knowledge that I was lost, that whatever map had lead me here would be no good to me ever again. And so I wrapped my arms around myself, the way you had wrapped around me that night, and I ached.

I remember you made French toast the next morning, but the bread was stale and the crusts were hard as rock. You made it with cinnamon and vanilla, the way your mother does. It didn’t taste anything like hers though, that day you brought me there to meet her. She took one look at me and decided I needed to be fed. Not out of kindness, but out of the insistence that women shouldn’t be this thin and she had the right to decide for me. Her French toast was incredible. Butter melting on the lightly browned bread and a perfect balance of spice and sweet. I choked it down at her kitchen table, her eyes on me.  

And now you, at my father’s kitchen table, and of course he wasn’t home or you wouldn’t have been allowed to stay the night. And I found myself wishing that he hadn’t gone out to whatever Valentine’s day surprise his girlfriend had for him. Gone out and left me here, the house to myself and you.

But that’s not fair, you hadn’t done anything wrong. You made me breakfast, the crust scraping against the roof of my mouth and I made my own coffee. You did nothing wrong, and I? Surely, I didn’t either. (But, I did, I did, and they would always tell me so, there was no ring on my finger yet).

And I wondered what my mother would say if I called and told her what I’d done. I wondered how many ways they would try to put me back together, whole. I wondered if anyone would even pick up the phone.

My mother never put cinnamon in her French toast, or butter. It was always multigrain sandwich bread (two slices per serving) and fried in light oil (because it was lower calorie) and sometimes she’d melt cheddar cheese on top (light), layering it with applesauce and maple syrup (1 tablespoon each) and I wondered if I would like that better in this moment.

I was supposed to have a violin lesson, but there was something tearing in me (torn, by you, and clumsy love). I sat with my arms wrapped around my bleeding moral compass and forced down dry French toast and you smiled at me with all the tenderness you knew how to give.

A different smile, from the one last night, when you looked up at me with all the admiration I had ever craved and asked me to take the cross from around my neck.

I couldn’t go to my lesson, I couldn’t stand tall and make music from a body and soul soiled like this. But I told you I would, so that you would leave, and I could sit here alone and ache. My map gone, my compass broken.

That’s what I remember.