Dirty butterfly kisses · a story

Exes, almost loves & the way we change.

Seven years ago, in that ripening time before summer begins, I met a man who was never meant for me. He’d drive me down a sunny road of beach pines. Make me laugh. Kiss me hard. I knew he kissed women well. Kissing him unzipped self-restraint. He’s fun, you'd tell your friends. Debauchery explained away in suntan and chemistry. I’d see him on Wednesdays. Sex in the middle of the week, always. Afterwards, he’d hand me a hair tie that wasn’t mine and say I think you left this here. The things he handed me were never mine. Just a ruse to tell me his hands have been in another woman’s hair. I never really cared. It never stopped me slipping out of sundresses. Faded magenta floral on the floor. Right next to hair ties.

Once, we left our friends in a bar. Night air rushed in the taxi window. While we were all hands. And necks. And cheap wine. He left a bite mark and I took a polaroid of it. Some days we’d look like love. Giggling in supermarkets. Clinging to each other in full sun. His t-shirt in my laundry basket. And sometimes we’d take our dogs down the bay. Burnt, sandy, pretending. After every week I’d wonder where it's going but do nothing about it. Because I still wanted smudged mascara. Dirty butterfly kisses – his long hair in my face, at my hips, on my thigh. That particular touch of men who work with their hands.  In the dead of summer, I got high in my bathroom. Sprawled out on cool tiles I stared at the roof and wondered if I loved him, or if I could, or if we should. 

I texted him my feelings once and he stepped back. We ignored that the following Wednesday against his bedroom wall. We ignored it in tongues. In spine. In murmur. Eventually, I guess we came to the silent conclusion we couldn’t. Or shouldn’t. One afternoon, on the sun lounger, I canceled our plans again. He replied instantly. Asking if he’d done something wrong. Saying he felt like I was sick of him. Months later, part of me blamed his new girlfriend. Forgetting I had ended it. Forgetting why.

I looked him up last week. Typing his name into my Facebook search bar under aqua glow, I found he’d cut his hair and that broke my heart. I wanted to send him a message. But him seven years ago. His profile said he’d gotten a permanent job. Been to Peru. Maybe even moved out of his brother's house. I’m clean from smoke and from loving in half-wants. I’m a writer now. Truth sticks to me like sweat. I understand he no longer exists. That he faded with our hangovers. With the bedroom bruises. That air swept away our smoke years ago. That now we exist entirely in metaphor. Me, a hair tie on his bedroom floor. And him, a story, on mine.