Big Dump

“So what happened?” Jonny asks, sitting on the bed. His legs are stretched on the duvet and his hands are locked on his stomach; he looks attentive and sober. I realize that this is a start of a long conversation.

“Nothing happened,” I shrug. I walk around the hotel room because there are a million things that need to be done. The unpacked bags are standing by the door and I dread going through them; perhaps we can make it until tomorrow without opening a single zip.

“Something happened,” Jonny says. He is wearing his green sweater because he is always cold on the planes. Today we were out of our luck and the flight was canceled. It is hot and rainy and there is absolutely nothing to do.

“We met at the train station,” I start a 25-year old story, “Your brother was a little late.”

“So you had to wait for him?” he asks and I remember standing awkwardly by the ticket windows, “You were standing next to all other people waiting for their dates.”

“I wasn’t standing,” I say and open the only closet, stare at wire hangers, “Well, I was standing first, but then the ticket lady asked me what I was doing so I had to walk around, check my watch, stare at the schedules.”

Jonny laughs delightedly, then prompts me to go on. I tell him that Colin wore all black and we couldn’t find what to talk about for some time. I tell him that it was murky when we arrived.

“Tell me if your hands brushed when you were walking,” he asks and I sit on the duvet, stare at his feet.

“Not when we were walking. But our shoulders touched a couple of times when we were standing in the crowd,” I say and take off one of his socks. For a moment I gaze at his foot, unsure how to caress it.

“Was it awfully loud?” he asks and nudges my hand with his foot.

“Yes,” I say and fall back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It was awfully loud and we had to speak into each other’s ears. Do you know how hard it is to sound sweet while screaming into someone’s ear?

“Yes,” Jonny laughs and rolls on the bed until he is parallel with me. His hand rests on my chest and one of his legs nestles between mine, “Did you kiss?”

“No,” I say, and Jonny’s cold foot tries to find its way into my sock. Colin surprised me when he went in for a hug when we were saying our goodbyes and I patted him on the back a couple of times.

Jonny laughs again and I am delighted to see a thin film of perspiration covering his forehead. It makes his pale skin look smooth; he looks like Colin 25 years ago and it feels wrong to have him like this. He does not mind it all, his hand slides to my stomach and he brings his face closer to mine.

“You should have taken me,” he says, whispering like a boy, loud and eager, “Nothing happened. You should have taken me.”

“I did take you,” I say, staring into Jonny’s dilated pupils, “I didn’t know. I did the best I could.”