the reading at present

Disapprovingly. “You always think of the consequences. You’ve got 5 different escape routes before you’ve even started. Before getting into anything you’re all, ‘Oh if it goes well it goes well, and if it doesn’t I get hurt, fine I get hurt.’ You don’t let yourself go.”

 

Stunned by the accuracy. “Yes yes… I’m like that. Not that I don’t let go, you could ask Jin, I’m sure he’d tell you that out of our friends I’m quite a risk-taker and do take the plunge in relationships. And consequences, isn’t that good? I mean, I consider what could happen.”

 

“That’s the thing…In some things you can’t think about how it ends. You’ve just got to do it. You’ve got to stop trying to control things, let it go.”

 

So… What now? Force nothing, try nothing, give without thinking? Wake up everyday and think of you only by accident? Really now. I got unsteadily through the door, dropping my bag onto the floor that you’ve only walked once (like all who are seduced instantly by my water bed, your body made one long neat ripple upon it; briefly I got in beside you and for a second you considered the possibilities, which I would have taken you up on if we hadn’t only half an hour to get back down to town) and my first thought was, “Damn! I still miss you. It hasn’t been long, only long enough for the lines on my palm to realise they could be etched wrongly.”

 

You’re the same as me. You think of all the possible NO’s today, everything that could be a YES beyond the blinding light of tomorrow. 

 

I held myself together so I could look purposeful, moving on from you to rest of my life. But really, after your car pulled away from the bus stop any haughtiness disintegrated and I was just another of the dissatisfied figures I’ve never cared to be.