Corben

“What do you want from me?”

A pause.

He looked into my eyes and thought for a moment before responding thickly, “Nothing…...what do you want?”

Just coming out of an alcoholic haze and into the realization of being in Corben’s arms, I was pleased with his answer and smiled as I pondered the question asked.

“I don’t exactly know,” smiling. This answer was an epiphany that had eluded me for the last two years that had passed since Cor and I had broken up.

*Spring 1998*

I stumbled as I tried to explain the unreality that had plagued me over the past few days. Romance was never really something I went in for. In fact, the whole notion as it exists today revolts me and has contributed to the end of more than one relationship. So I struggled, trying to convey myself without using the term 'romantic'.

“Well, I…I guess I have just been feeling…..well, sort of distant and …nostalgic? Maybe.”

This was an understatement, to say the least. The past days I had been slipping in and out of vicious daydreams so often that occasionally I was concerned with my grip, or rather lack thereof, on reality.

“I think I am just really dazzled by the idea of having one last fling with an old flame before we both move on with our lives, regarding each other as far off blurred memories.”

Actually, I stopped speaking after the phrase ‘old flame’, but I was sincerely thinking the rest.

I shifted myself off his lap and onto the couch next to him. The diffused light made his brown eyes appear almost black.

He made vague gestures while stammering “you’re not thinking about…you know…about…” Then more vague gesturing.

“No, I don’t know, why don’t you just say what you’re thinking?”

“Are you contemplating us getting back together?”

I was so startled. I felt my eyes grow wider. Without a second thought I blurted out “No! Absolutely not.” A stifled laugh. Perhaps a bit too quick a response for anyone’s dignity.

“Oh. Good. ‘Cause that’s not gonna happen.”