You said, remember that life is
Not meant to be wasted
We can always be chasing the sun.
In the depths of that subtropical winter, June 2021, the five of us planned as we often did to converge at the Emporium for drinks and chat.
Come the day itself, you and I were the only ones who could make it. I hadn't had dinner so I dropped into McDonald's first, wearing my longcoat for the first time. You found me scarfing down a chicken burger, coat in a bundle on the table, Looking for Whales propped against the raised table edge.
That was the day we talked about decompression sickness, dual motherboard setups, mental health, meal plans, the things we inherit from parents. Remember that? The glittering balcony of the hotel bar where we pointed out the M1 motorway, shining in the hazy distance? How, half-drunk and fifty dollars down, we wandered to the empty tables on the deserted Griffith University plaza and bared our hearts?
I looked you in the eye then, and a quiet understanding crossed between us, that anything could be said in this space and it would be received with curiosity and care, and kept in confidence, like a treasure.
The thought came again, more stridently. I could fall so hard for you, if I let myself.
I only let you walk me halfway home that night.
It was the small things, paving the bridge from there to here. How you pulled up on Brook Street to help a stranger start their stalled car. How you had taken note of my love for cheese, and gave me a slice you'd handpicked, wrapped in a paper bag—the only birthday gift I received that year. How you bounced along to an unfinished draft of Summer Heat on our drive to D&D, told me it was "very me.” How you met me on a winter evening after pole class, along Queen Street on the path overhanging the busway, to witness my signature on an annexure. How you were there at my sharehouse on a day's notice, my getaway driver from a room too small for me.
And I knew you were the kindest person I had ever met. And I knew it was so easy to adore you. Pane by pane, you built a greenhouse of light and safety around us, vaulting overhead like the sky, defiant to the cold. Like the sun that pierced through and left its heat inside, your gaze made me feel illuminated and seen.
And when that love lying dormant in the earth began, at last, to sprout, it bolted and climbed and bloomed out wild.
It was an afternoon on the edge of winter, on the cusp of spring. I was settling into that carpeted, glassy Adelaide Street apartment, ironing out the creases. I realised after the repairs that I needed to test the intercom. So I called upon you, because you were the only person it could possibly be—and you came when I did so, on so simple a whim, for so brief a task.
We talked on my couch, strictly friends-only sitting side-by-side—and suddenly we were at Mumo Tea, signing me up for Ingress over ice-cream and bubble tea. A place now shuttered to time, I imagine we will someday recall as we pass the facade of whatever shop takes its place, how it was just inside, at a table no longer existent, that we had that conversation.
Nighttime walks, up and down Kangaroo Point, watching the city ripple in the water. Daydreams and night-dreams of you and I holding hands in a parking lot, stealing kisses in the sodium light. I swaddled myself in my quilt for a day, tossing and turning. I finally let myself want you.
Calculated on risk and reward, what if you're really aromantic, and what if you're still seeing that person from Woodford, and is it true we’d be good together? then fuck it, I'll never live down the regret of not asking.