First

I am sitting on the Greyhound. It is the latest model – all blue and attractive and unsullied and I can sit comfortably in my seat. It is unlike the older models where my already short, stubby legs had been crammed and pushed together as if stuck in a vice against the seat in front of me. There is no one sitting next to me – most people are sitting alone today. It is cold in here – I am wearing the grey, military-style jacket that I wore on the journey up that resulted in me sweating far too heavily when we got out of the metro and the one that prompted you to comment on how silly I was to dress in layers when it was so hot and the sun was shining in the city. I responded jokingly with “I suffer for fashion” and you clicked your tongue in response like you always do when I say silly things. We walked down St. Laurent to your apartment and I smiled because nothing had changed in you since I dropped you off at your house a week earlier. All you had said was “See you soon”. You didn’t even kiss me when you got out of my car.

I cannot see over the top of the navy-colored cloth chair in front of me – it is much too tall. My momentary companions are the people occupying the rows beside me. The boy to my right is reading a book. It is small and it is a paperback. I think the cover is beige. He is wearing a beige jacket and is rather well dressed. I notice that his pants are white. I smile gently – he must be French. He can’t speak a word of English. As we got on the bus, the old, black Canadian man checking our tickets could not understand his explanations or destination and so the exchange between them was awfully confusing and drew the attention of the rest of the passengers. I simply grinned and hoped he wasn’t too embarrassed.

But, I do I think that Greyhound should be employing bi-lingual people for trips arriving and departing in Montreal.

I kissed the gray patch of hair (that you told me you received during a traumatic experience in 8^th grade) at the bus station as you left me waiting in line for a security check-out. I gave you a half-hug and let go much too quickly because I was self-conscious. It seemed like it was the perfect thing to do at the time– your hair and my lips are almost level but I regretted not holding on for longer almost as much I regretted not tearing up my passport and throwing out my phone and running off with you. And everyone looked at me after you left – the way you were standing so close to me and the way you peered at the tiled floor in front of you like you were waiting for the summer to end because it was over when I was leaving you and not when the calendar said otherwise.

But they were not malicious glances, really. They were just glances, eye movements, fluttering lashes. They were inspecting me, checking me out, wondering what the situation between us was. They were not different from the glances we got on the street as we walked around in broad daylight holding hands. I’m trying though, not to worry to when people look at us and know we’re together - I really am. But I’m not so used to these sorts of things.

I am listening to the music mix you made me. My head is pressed against the tall, plexi-glass windows as I cycle through my iPOD and I look at the new songs I have. “On-the-Go 1” is the title of the playlist. Basia Bulat comes on. She sings “Oh, It was the first time I fell in love”. I immediately press my hands against my face and look at my palm. I turn my head to the window. My face crinkles up and my eyes begin to water. I think “Goddamnit, Barry, don’t be so dumb”. I miss you already. It’s been half an hour and I already miss you.

I burrow through my blue messenger bag, my carry-on, looking for a book; any book, really. I brought a few of the ones your apartment-mate gave me as I left so maybe I will read one of them to pass the time. A new song comes on, one by Ra Ra Riot. It’s called “Oh, La” and I hear the words “We have a lot to learn from each other, we have got to stick together.” Suddenly, I don’t want to read and I close the bag and put it back beneath my seat.

I love how when you laid next to me only hours/days ago in your bed (that I wasn’t allowed to wear my street pants in because your white cotton sheets would get dirty because they were new and from IKEA) and you would put your arms around me and press yourself against me and lay your head on my shoulder and I would put my arm under your neck and look at the ceiling and see you staring at me out of the corner of my eye. Your eye would trace my profile, my nose, and my eyes not looking at your eyes (but really they always were). As I sit on that bus I most certainly would rather be there with you than here bumping up and down staring at highways and trees and the sun slowly saying goodbye to the daytime.

I am at the US Border now. I’m not going to reach inside of my pocket and take out my cell phone and sebd you a text. I’m not going to think about now that I’m physically not there with you maybe I won’t be there mentally there with you either and maybe I’ll just disappear into the folds of your brain never to be heard from again. You told me once that if you found someone else you’d never tell me – you’d just never talk to me again. You laughed afterwards and the sides of your deep blue eyes got small and crinkled up (like I like mostly more than anything else in the world) and you smiled and I could see almost all of your teeth and they were white and you looked like you had fangs. “You’re an ass,” I said as I lay under your covers. I turned over so I wasn’t facing you anymore. “Hrmph”, I said. We were drunk. You pulled my arm towards you - I knew what you wanted. You groaned “Barry, stop, you know I’m kidding – it’s not going to happen”, and so I turned back over and smiled and kissed your forehead gently.

My friends used to talk about you in High School (but officially we met at work this summer and I knew you were mine the second you walked in the door ready to slice deli meats with me for an hour or so). They used to tell me how you disappeared in Chicago on a Model United Nations trip and came back at to your hotel room at three in the morning with no explanation. They said that you didn’t care about anything and that you were funny. I saw you walking into the cafeteria one day wearing your school uniform with your head held low and your face in that awful scowl that made me doubt if you even wanted to be with me for our first month together.

You looked absolutely miserable. I said to myself “You don’t look very funny”.

Your (my new) playlist has been exhausted. I take my iPOD and flip open the leather case. I go to the letter “L” and put on Lady Daydream by Twin Sister. I played it for you last night after you played a song by Ben Kweller and made me listen to it with your new, expensive, DJ headphones. It made me tear up and make horrible, twisted, mournful faces as I felt your body next to me pressed against mine and I tried to stop myself from crying but I couldn’t because we were together for the last night/time in your new bed in your new room in your new apartment in a city so far from me. You must have heard me sniffing the liquids back into my nose through the blaring of the music of your headphones. I don’t mind if you see me cry – we both know I am the emotional one. You lit little candles and they illuminated your body and your room (that I still think looks Oriental-jungle themed) and me and told me that you were not trying to seduce me but that you just liked to light candles when you were going to sleep

Twin Sister and my headphones tell me, “If you forget it all, I will bring it with me. If you can’t find the sea, I will take you there.”

It is getting dark outside and I am having trouble seeing the landscape of Vermont, now. I press my head against the tall plexi-glass windows and close my eyes.