In that same instant, the running dialogue in my brain starts to repeat “ridiculous” over and over. I wonder at all that has happened in the 14 years between our first kiss and our last; hope that my fear that you will break my heart is just that; and remember you looking at me in the moment before our lips touched in that 14-years-later instant in my hotel in Denver last Friday. I remember how surprised I was at how much I felt, and how much I don’t want you to go away… My mind questions what happened in those 14 years to make this happen now?
I imagine you next to me, and what that would be like to wake up with you tomorrow morning.
I would blink my eyes to adjust to the dark, using the slits of sun peaking out from the gaps in the curtains to orient myself. Your breath would be metered and deep. As I turn over to run my fingers over the landscapes of your body, you would stir quietly. The warmth of your sleeping core would radiate through my fingers and meet my coursing blood. A chill would follow the nerves of my arms and cascade through my being. You would smile that sleepy and disoriented smile—the one that simultaneously reads that you are exactly where you should be…
Instead, I just feel the claustrophobia of the plane and ponder the last 14 years and the next...