He picked me up from a wedding.
He also took me to the wedding, too. A pang of regret fell over me, that he didn’t get the opportunity to cajole with my work friends and associates. The logistics of the wedding didn’t plan for me to bring a plus one, and even if that weren’t a factor, the relative lateness of our planning made it a poor prospect. But I couldn’t do that to him either, to thrust him into an unfamiliar crowd, where everyone save one as a veritable stranger. Especially when we only had so little time together.
The following day, we visited one of my favorite places, a used bookstore housed in a cavernous warehouse. We browsed shelves on shelves of books, all disheveled & cramped & crowded in neat lines. Racks of DVDs, once beloved electronics, vinyl records, CDs. We found a few to add to our libraries. I paid for his book. I felt guilty; it wasn’t expensive. Would he accuse me of not appreciating him? Of using him? A book doesn’t make up for the effort he put forth, and what if I wasn’t worth it? I can’t shake that anxious impulse.
We stumbled upon a Vietnamese place on the verge of closing down for the day, or altogether. The pho, a beautiful remedy to my hangover. We’d share memes in the group chat with his meta. We meandered through stories about our pasts, and weave into them tidbits, asides, and unrelateds.
I left my phone in his truck when he dropped me off, and it’d be another day before I miss him, just barely, when he drops it off. I wanted to cuddle another night, to touch him, to feel his beard on my skin or the heat radiating off his skin. To hold him, to be held by him. To entrust each other with memories both awful & wonderful. And even that, I missed an opportunity to hug him, to kiss him, one last time. (I am too much work.)
Sadly, I only found my phone resting on the hood of my car.
But with long distance relationships, coincidences in geography are splendidly rare treats.
Like the intelligent people they were, the ceremony and reception occurred at the same venue. A bar. Their favorite bar, to be exact. (With an open bar!) And I slipped up, having forgotten that I checked the vegan option on my RSVP, so when I collected every aggressively unvegan dish from the buffet, I was greeted with a plate of butternut squash lasagna. We laughed, and in my head a small Seinfeld production played out.
I was always an awkward person. Owe it to the ’tism. My childhood conditioned me perfectly to be a gold star first impressionist (but scoring no points in the second, third, or umpteenth impression.) And this was my first formal outing since coming out. Since becoming me. Since covid. I was nervous about forgetting all the lessons hard learned about how to people. And here I was, fearing that I was more than an imposter, but a feral possum not even trying to pose as something belonging.
I was so nervous about my dress, the shade of teal what reminds me of the sea on the warmer parts of a cold late November day. My shoes. My hair. My makeup. I was nervous. About me. About him.
What if when he saw me, he changed his mind? Or worse, went through with it and regrets it?
Painted lips kissing him when he picks me up from my house. I climb on top him in the hotel room to kiss him, to make out like an immodest teenager on a time-crunch. He held my hand for most of the drive to Nashville, and back. We listened to music. We talked. My breath was booze-soured when he scooped me from the reception, having found me in the parking lot with a cigarette and no jacket, breathing out puffs of crisp January air. I fell asleep with my head in his lap.
The next morning, when I’m fighting my sleep clothes off that I half-tore off in the slowest, sleepiest strip tease that I wasn’t even conscious for, when I’m in a hotel room’s party sized shower in a pitch-black hotel bathroom, when I’m being seared by piping hot water, washing off that sickly alcohol stench & hangover-induced migraine, when I crawled back into bed aching and sore, when he leaves to fetch morning caffeine and headache pills, when he’s sharing his gushers with me, when he’s telling me about the drama and cacophony from the bachelorette party across the hall, I didn’t find myself even wondering if he was ever revolted by me.
He picked me up from the wedding. We kissed. He said, “I’m not feeling all that sexual tonight.”
For that moment, I was shocked to discover a term when I misheard him, a word that every ace-spec person needs to ehar. Because I thought he said, “I’m not feeling all that sextroverted.”