She'll never be in the picture. I understood then as I understand now: it was a simple mistake. She stepped out of the room to use the restroom at the exact moment that we decided to take the group photo. There were fifteen of us in the room; we'll be excused for forgetting her. I didn't even remember to check for her until she came back from the restroom. By that time, it was too late. Patrick, Diane and Dennis had already gone. She said not to worry about it.
The funny thing is that I didn't - worry, that is - until recently. She and I fell apart. And you know how the poets say it's better to have loved and lost than never loved. Well, ok. But now I'm left here holding a picture without her in it, and I'm wondering if I should put it away in the box with her letters and the picture of her graduation and the perfume she bought herself with my money, or if I should leave it out on she shelf to mock me every day with the fact that she was conspicuously absent.
Do I let her take my past with me, or do I fight the loss with tooth and nail?
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Oh, goodness, this is sad.
ReplyDeleteI think there are more than the two options presented here, but I am too tired to explain. I keep starting conversations in my head and not finishing them. Sorry.
It's just that, well, she's really only able to steal "you"r future together, and that might not have been so great, anyway, with a person like her who likes to take things.
ReplyDeleteShe can do nothing about "you"r past; that's "you"rs.
Sometimes I wish we gave these people names.
That doesn't make too much sense.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Again, not actually about me. They used to be. They're not much anymore.
I prefer it to be not about me. I work better in fiction.
It does feel like you're trying to distance yourself from them.
ReplyDeleteIt made sense in my head. But that's probably because I like things to be set in stone. I've slowly been learning that I live a lot in my past (my perception of it, anyway). For a while, I felt as though Ron Don had stolen a big part of my past. But he didn't. He stole one of my possible futures because he slammed the door on our friendship. My past still belongs to me, and distance of a few years has made me realize that I needed that friendship to grow into a better person and that I can enjoy the memories or at least not be hurt by them anymore.
So this character of yours who thinks this other character of yours is taking his (right?) past with her . . . well, I think he's got it all wrong.
Still nonsensical? Probably.