“I was pregnant once, married twice, never viscerally in love, and I’m not sure what this is, but I like having you around.”  

It was one of those brisk and perfect fall days with its burnt orange, rust brown, magnificent red splattered everywhere that caused things to unravel from the tongue. 

“I fast on Fridays, play my music really loud, and watch the television on mute. If I have to cry, it’s done once every four months, and regardless of how much a thing may hurt after that bout of tears, no more drops are allowed. It’s banked until the next ‘salt ceremony.’"

 He didn’t hold my hand and pretend to genuinely commiserate or understand. We just walked in silence up the hill, through the Pathmark’s parking lot, across 125^th and onto Berkley to my

apartment.  

He made tea and baked an apple crumble pie. Who knew he could? It was a pleasant discovery but not the kind that would’ve made me want him around even more. I washed the teacups and admired him; brown V neck sweater, unbuckled dark blue True Religion, bare feet padding across the floor.  

“I don’t usually allow men to piss around my territory. And I’m not permitting you to because you’re special. I’m just down on my luck and could use some company, someone to spend the holidays with ‘cause it kinda gets lonely.” 

The thud of soles ceased, then resumed, fading until it got lost somewhere between the bathroom and my office.  Swept the kitchen, emptied the trash even though I could have asked him to, but it’s my space and I must protect its sovereignty. When I returned, he was standing there. 

“Your company is needed too.” 

I stared at him, mortified by the hint of vulnerability. Awkward! And ignorant of what to do with my hands or myself. We hung there in all the rawness, until rescued by the obscenities filtering through the kitchen window from the street below.  We smiled, then chuckled. It was our first for the day.  

Several moons and many fall days later, we’re on a blow up bed in the home office. Our makeshift sleeping quarters so that he won’t sleep in my room, or on my bed, and I won’t have a litter of memories to dispose of  in his wake. Just a simple quarantine, then allow them expire right here, when it all blows to smithereens.

As always, my thoughts were all my own; his attention lost on the fingers that mapped goose bumps around the perimeters of collarbone, areolas,  hands, and legs. Desire took each breath ragged with electricity. We were charged between kisses. 

And on that brisk and perfect fall day with its burnt orange, rust brown, magnificent red splattered everywhere, things unraveled from his tongue.

“I was never married, have been in love thrice, got my heart broken each and every single time. But still want children, happiness and a lifetime of honesty.” 

Pink Floyd stopped crooning. U2 cued in; Where the streets have no names. Vertigo. His right hand snaked between my waist and the linen, curled and drew me closer to him. The other threw a bit of blanket across the slice of exposed skin upon my back. I felt compelled to tell him.

“I'm usually about the present; no children, marriage, happily ever after stuff, just a particular moment to behold and be held in. But lately I’ve been thinking that maybe one day I could have a child and maybe go to Thailand and Benin, or Egypt."  

We have been dancing in that room of pseudo dating for a while. No words of definition. just weekends of hiking the Appalachian, sing-a-longs at Bruce Springsteen and Stephen Marley concerts, a trip to the doctor, swim trunks and an itsy bitsy polka dot bikini on a beach in Nevis, et cetera, et cetera. Always punctuated by the circling of our sharp edges. But on that brisk and perfect fall day with its burnt orange, rust brown, magnificent red splattered everywhere, things  unraveled from the tongue. 

 “I’m actually 32, not 29 as you assumed and I know you’re 30 though I never asked. The day we got pulled over for driving too slow, I peeped at your D.O.B. I’m happiest when teaching my Math 310 and 420 classes. It was a miscarriage. She would have been ten years old, and even though she’s no longer the reason for a salt ceremony, I remember her every so often. The first time I had sex I was seventeen. Three months later when my family found out, my mom, grandma, eldest sister and auntie, held me down and packed broken scotch bonnet and wiri-wiri peppers into my vagina. The fact that I don’t hate them worries me. I have this recurring dream where I’m always scared and running from the faceless person chasing me. I think I'm rambling, maybe I should shut up now.”

 I chuckled. He was lost on an area in the ceiling, maybe thinking. Who knows…until...

 “I want what my parents have; the happy marriage and children. My brother and sister have that. But love has been so elusive. You know, I cheated on an ex who loved me to pieces and I strongly believe the three heartbreaks were my penance. Black Crowes' 'She talks to Angels' reminds me of you, and that fact should probably scare me, or at the very least raise some concern, but it doesn't. I'm extremely happy around you. And I know you’ve got a tremendous history of scars, greater than any woman I’ve dated. Not to say I don’t have my own. By the way, are we dating? I mean, if you’re comfortable with it, I’d like to give us shape, some sort of definition and get your permission to let the guards down. Give us a chance.” 

I was afraid we were making a mess of it, yet, things unraveled from the tongue. 

“You can’t ever try to change, or fix me. And I’m still not comfortable with you pissing around my territory, so no leaving a shirt or toothbrush, as yet, maybe later on. But we can try the bed next time. It’s sort of weird and awkward to say, but you’re the safest space I've known for a while. And if we're going to give us a try, it can't be the surface street kind. It has to be life affirming, and visceral, understand? Otherwise, I don't want it.” 

We agreed, but didn’t hold hands or look into each other’s eyes  brimming with tears and kiss like the lead characters of romantic comedies do. We just aligned ourselves in a spoon on that brisk, perfect fall day with its burnt orange, rust brown, magnificent red splattered everywhere, and continued to unravel.